Shameless
by QueenyMidas
Summary: Coming around on his third year in the local Escort service, Draco gets a new client that surprises him. Harry Potter, after having dropped out of the Auror academy, finds his life without direction or meaning when he orders a helping hand. Along with an Auror investigation gone wrong, once-separated lives intertwine again in a mess of scandal and moral ambiguity.
1. Chapter 1: Perfect Match

AN: Hey, guys! I couldn't keep still for long. This fic is pretty different from my others (full of domestic bliss and security), so I hope you appreciate this too! I've wanted to write a sex-positive Rentboy Draco fic for a long time now, and this was a good break from MBFPW (yes, I am writing a sequel eventually). This one is darker than my past fics, but I do love a tragicomedy.

**Chapter 1: Perfect Match**

Madam Natasha read over the latest owl post with a satisfied smirk on her painted lips. Her smirk grew with each word, knowing exactly who this client would fit best with. The workers under her protection were admittedly a varied sort, but she knew a match when she saw one.

"Uh-oh," Gail teased once she saw the look on Natasha's face. In all honesty, Gail wasn't her given name, just as Natasha wasn't the other woman's given name. After all, it would be pretty had to draw in clients with a 'Madam Nathan' running the show. "You've got that look in your eye."

Natasha batted her eyelashes. "Do I?" From the rose chair she stood, heels so spiky and high that it put her seemingly miles above the other woman that reclined on a nearby couch.

The room smelled of incense. Natasha found it relaxing, and the smoke it covered the room in reminded her of her first night out on the town dressed as the woman she knew she was inside. A thousand memories decorated the room as well, the walls adorned in posters of shows she had been to and her desk filled with trinkets from customers and workers alike.

She liked it. It gave the room a sense of intimacy. "I'm just happy when I can pair up someone without needing a consultation in person. That only serves to frighten them off."

"So, who's our lucky customer?" Gail asked, leaning forward on the sofa, not even bothering to cross her legs like her mother used to tell her to do whenever she wore skirts. Gail's mother was far away from that place, and not even the Aurors could find Natasha's little alcove.

Natasha took a seat where Gail had made room, draping a copper arm around the other woman. "He requests complete and total privacy," Natasha informed Gail, knowing that revealing _this_ man's name could be her downfall. After all, the Potter vault at Gringotts held a small fortune. The fact that The Boy Who Lived wanted to spend it on one of her Rentboys was a gift to business. Also, she'd never figured the Golden Boy to be a poof. The things he could do for visibility and advocacy…

"Don't they all ask for that?" Gail asked. Sure, she was still a rookie on the job, but she was no blushing virgin either.

"Of course. But what kind of person would I be if I out this man to you? I'd be no better than those vultures who keep trying to take our rights away."

Gail's eyes lit up in curiosity. "So he's gay? Awesome."

"Seems like," Natasha nodded, looking down at the Harry Potter's handwriting with a distinct fascination. '_…looking for a man with a sense of dominance. I do appreciate your respect for my privacy, but I also know that people can get starstruck. I'm not sure why, but they do…_' "I swear, every word of this is begging for my top man."

"You don't mean—?"

"Of course I do, Gail. They can keep each other's identities secret," she decided.

Draco was the only one of her workers that used his real name. There were no fronts, no pretending, and generally no bullshit when he was involved. Sure, there may be a conflict over their past, but Natasha was sure her Draco was mature enough to handle it.

After all, Draco had changed drastically from when he ran into Natasha in a Knockturn Alley pub and inquired about a job three years ago. He'd been callous then. Cruel, even. He'd looked at the business as a job and nothing more. The poor boy had thought it was all about sex.

"Mutual blackmail," Gail marveled, wrapping one of her orange locks around her index finger as she spoke to keep her curls fresh. "You're magnificent."

Natasha clicked her tongue. "'Blackmail' is such a harsh word. You make me sound like a common criminal."

Gail's laughter floated up like another swirl of the pomegranate incense, dissipating like smoke above them.

XxXxX

Theo and Colin sent Draco off with a hearty goodbye that night. He'd gotten an owl halfway through dinner, but Draco had promised he'd make up for it by taking them out to a fancy restaurant with all the money he was going to make off of this client. Natasha had told him just how loaded the bloke was, and that was a refreshing surprise.

Draco had seen men go broke on his services.

"Be safe!" Theodore Nott (soon-to-be Creevey) joked as he watched his friend leave to go do one illicit activity or another.

Theo's fiancée, Colin Creevey, simply shook his head in amusement and went to throw the used dishes into the sink. Hanging around Slytherins had opened his mind to a whole new horizon of scandal, debauchery, and fantastic sex.

"I always am!" Draco called back, waving his favorite monogamous friends. Well, his only monogamous friends.

In the blink of an eye, he apparated back to his flat. After all, he had to get ready.

The usual rush of excitement came as he hopped into the shower, covering every inch of his pale skin with an arsenal of beauty products. Exfoliator, moisturizer, shimmer cream, and in that order. There was no point to denying that his job was a very visual one, and knowing tricks of the trade helped get customers hooked.

Not all of it was visual, though.

The only information he'd gotten about the new mystery man was that he requested an extreme amount of privacy. Either he was paranoid, or someone important.

As Draco massaged the vanilla shampoo into his scalp, he allowed himself to paint a picture of the man in his mind. Maybe he was an Auror. Draco never had a problem with serving the Wizarding World's Finest.

Or maybe he was an overworked lawyer. Aching muscles, practically begging for someone to take the reins from him.

At that, he could be a businessman. Loaded bank account, CEO of a multi-million dollar industry, with a wife and three kids at home who were clueless to daddy's whereabouts on 'corporate getaways'. The only place that man could really be open was with Draco.

When Draco looked down, he realized he was getting hard.

"Save that for him," Draco murmured, stepping out of his glass shower and into the blue lights of his bathroom. Every new customer was a new opportunity.

An opportunity for an always-satisfying orgasm, an opportunity to get to know someone's ins and outs, what got their engine fired up, and an opportunity to connect. In a strange way, Draco considered his customers (new and old) like a string of lovers. The money just helped him keep his exorbitant lifestyle.

After all, that penthouse flat in London didn't pay for itself, and his parents weren't about to sign their whore son back into their wills.

But that was another story for another time.

Right then, right there, as steam clung to his skin as he exited the shower, Draco had to focus on the truth and on the present. The truth was, he wasn't taking handouts from anyone. This was his money, his time, his life.

When he got a grasp on his wand again, Draco cast a drying spell that blown his hair back just the way he liked it. Draco continued his stroll across the hardwood floor by summoning those tight muggle jeans he'd grown so fond of, a flimsy grey shirt, and his favorite leather jacket. No pants required.

Equipped with a pack of condoms and a bottle of lube, Draco was geared to go. Once he had his knee-high leather boots on, he looked like a proper gentleman of the night.

Adjusting his collar in a full-length mirror by the door, he disparated from his flat.

When Draco found himself in the usual hotel where he conducted business, he had fallen out of one lap of luxury and into another. That was sort of the story of his life.

"Randy," Draco nodded to the bellboy in his formal green robes. Natasha paid him a pretty sickle to make sure that they could use the hotel without anyone looking too far into their frequent visits in skimpy clothing.

Politely and discreetly, he handed Draco the key to the penthouse suite. Draco wouldn't settle for anything less than the top floor.

The lobby's arched ceilings were no doubt impressive to someone who hadn't seen the place a million times before, as were the marble floors. It all reflected off of the opening doors of the elevator and mirrored Draco perfectly before they slid out of view.

His boots clacked as he entered the elevator and hit the button for the 13th floor. Draco's lucky number, he supposed.

As the charmed elevator rose floor by floor, his excitement grew. All of the moments that could be, all of the fun he could have… Draco felt like a muggle child going to one of those a-muse-mint parks. He hoped this ride had the loop-de-loops.

Finally, he stepped out.

Plush green carpeting with an elegant hint of gold embroidery led him right to the only room on the floor. The meeting time was to be 19:30, and Draco was a few minutes late. He liked to make an entrance, was all.

With all the cockiness in the world behind him, Draco fished the key back out of his jacket pocket and slid it into the keyhole.

It fit perfectly, so he turned the lock and let himself in.


	2. Chapter 2: Mssr Holden

AN: Here we go! Thanks to all the followers and favorites.

**Chapter 2: Mssr. Holden**

Just about every moral code in Harry's book was falling apart in front of him. He'd fretted in the hotel room for an hour before the meeting just to calm his nerves.

It was the first time he'd left Grimmauld Place in, well, too long. The house that was his godfather's first taste of prison was slowly becoming his. Harry didn't feel like getting out of bed most days, preferring to watch the muggle television in his room. After all, he had enough money to keep going like that for as long as he liked.

Ron and Hermione would visit, each time more concerned than the last. Hermione would give Harry that look that made him want to crawl back under his sheets and hide, and Ron's talk of exciting adventures as Head Auror drove Harry up the wall.

He was still glad that he dropped out of the Auror academy, though.

The first month had been a nightmare. Harry was trained to constantly look over his shoulder, to never let down his guard; not once. Leaving yourself vulnerable could mean death. Harry had learned that a long time ago, back in school before he murdered Tom Riddle and the maniac was trying to murder him.

The second month, Harry could barely sleep. He was frustrated, exhausted, and his mind was fraying. He found himself thinking of running away and never coming back.

By the third month, Harry had a meltdown that had been years coming. While he didn't like to remember the details—since it was wildly embarrassing—Harry would never forget the look on the other Aurors-in-training's faces when he finally snapped. Ron had to carry him out of the room and into a nearby bathroom, screaming.

Harry never wanted to feel like that again.

All his past relationships had gone sour through press attention or his own dysfunction, most of his friends stayed an arms-length away, and the papers were having a field day with the Recluse Savior.

Above all, Harry liked his television shows. The characters in those always made him smile. If he shut his eyes and listened to their voices, he was right there with Brian Kinney in an American gay bar, or in the TARDIS with Christopher Eckleston. As bad or as dangerous as their lives got, the people he admired on his silver screen were indomitable. They'd been to hell and back and still had their spirits.

It was more than Harry could say for himself.

Trying to make himself comfortable, he sat down in a green armchair that leaned back to offer a foot rest. When Harry reclined all the way back, he took a deep breath and tried to tackle the moral conflict. At least it didn't require him to stand.

Harry was just about to start weeding through the idea of a justification for purchasing sexual favors from another human being when he heard a key being turned into the lock. Fuck, had it really been that much time that he was sitting there alone and thinking?

With a bang, he closed the reclining chair so that it returned to the upright position. Harry could feel his hands shaking and a sweat break out over his brow. What if everything went wrong? He hadn't been able to be intimate with past boyfriends before, and—

The door swung open and a blonde man swaggered in, an easy smirk on his face. Harry almost launched himself backward over the chair.

"What are you doing here?" Harry demanded, not remembering how his wand got in his hand.

Malfoy's eyes widened. For a moment, he didn't say anything and kept his attention locked onto Harry's wand. The realization finally hit him when he saw the way that Potter was trembling. "Put down your wand," Draco managed in the midst of shock.

"Why should I?" Harry demanded. "Are you here from The Prophet? Merlin, how could I be so _stupid_! Or are you here to harass me, or hex me, or—"

"No," he replied calmly. "Potter, be rational about this. Who's the only other one with the key to this room?"

_The rentboy. But that would mean… _"You're lying."

"I have no reason to lie to you," Draco reminded him.

"Then why are you here?!"

Draco wondered if he should pull his own wand out for protection, since Potter seemed so keen on keeping his in the air. "I'm here because you asked me to be."

Harry scowled. "I didn't ask for you!"

"But you've already sent the galleons over, yes?" he asked. The next realization that hit him was that Potter had written that bloody letter. The one talking about how he needed a man, how he wanted to give up control… "Put your wand away."

This time, Harry lowered it. "You're…" Harry couldn't even finish the sentence.

The signature smirk returned to Draco's face. "The rentboy? The escort? The whore you ordered? Why, yes. Yes I am."

Harry couldn't believe his ears. The man looked like Malfoy—sleek, gorgeous, fit, piercing grey eyes—but he didn't sound like Malfoy. It made Harry crumble a little inside. Had Malfoy actually managed to move on after the war faster than he had? That was, if he was ever moving on.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, sit down," Draco told him before taking a step forward only to see Potter flinch away.

"Maybe I have," Harry blurted out. "How… Why are you—I mean, but you're _Malfoy_."

Draco had heard that about a thousand times before. "I don't really go by that name anymore. I'm just 'Draco'."

"But you're rich!" Draco had never let Harry forget that.

"My parents are," Draco nodded. "And I am now. But it's all my own money; money I earned."

Harry was still in shock. "By sleeping around?"

That bit always annoyed Draco. His clients always thought that Draco was the sinner in the situation, that he was the more corrupt. They often forgot who perpetuated his business. "Yes, by sleeping around," he said tensely.

"_Why_?"

Draco cracked a cocky smile. "You know what they say. If you love what you do, then you never work a day in your life."

If Harry wasn't so bewildered, he would have laughed at that. Draco's humor was still there, apparently. "But… _Why_?"

It seemed that Potter was no different. "I'm not being forced into this," Draco muttered. "There are a lot of people who are, but I'm not one of them. I'm a free agent, and I run my own business. My own hours, my own choices."

"Don't people try to abuse you?" Harry couldn't keep that one from coming out of him, a manifestation of his own guilt.

"If they try, then I leave. Why do you care so much about how other people treat me?"

Good question. "Because nobody should be taking advantage of… People in your situation."

"Prostitutes?" Draco asked flippantly. Seeing Harry so aghast over the concept when he had been the one who ordered him for the night was amusing.

"Yeah."

"Lower your wand, Potter."

This time, Harry listened. Nerves fried, he sank back into the armchair. It felt lumpier than before. Even so, he was amazed. Harry could barely have a proper roll in the sheets with blokes he'd fancied, and there Draco was turning tricks to strangers and enjoying it. "Why?" he asked again. "Why do you 'love it'?"

Draco knew that was a hard point to grasp, so he took a seat on the nearby couch. It was a long story and he deserved to kick up his heels to rest if the entirety of his night would be answering questions from Potter. "There was a time," he began, feeling his chest open up and the information fly out of his ribcage like trapped butterflies. "When I couldn't deal with the truth. People weren't my favorite thing, either."

Enraptured by that vulnerable look in his eye, Harry listened.

"As I'm sure you know, the war wasn't kind to anyone." Harry nodded. "So, when I ended up on the wrong side of it, it really messed me up. I hated everyone and I hated myself. People either despised me or looked disappointed with me wherever I went. I grew to loathe them, and loathe their looks. I thought that people were a lost cause, that the human race was doomed to fail because we had so much hatred with us. Hated that made a war possible."

Draco continued. "That was when I met Natasha, the woman you owled. She was the queen of the night life, and had constant companions by her side. It made me wonder how she could properly trust any of them or not grow annoyed by their admittedly annoying quirks and characteristics. That's when I learned that they were her employees. Can you believe it, a boss genuinely liking their employees enough to buy them drinks and go partying with them?"

Harry knew his Auror instructor back at the academy would have never done that will him. "Anyway, I wound up talking to her. She could see what a bitter little thing I was, and offered to help."

"By _prostituting_ you?"

With a roll of his eyes, Draco shook his head. "No. At first, she let me watch over the financials of the business since I'm rather good with numbers, but nobody wants to hire a Death Eater." The word sent chills up Harry's spine. "Then, I had a strange epiphany. I saw how, bizarrely enough, the other working girls and guys were… Happy. I hadn't been happy in a very long time."

"So," he shrugged. "I tried it out. I was feeling sick of feeling sick, and those people made me laugh and smile."

"There's a pretty big jump between liking prostitutes as friends and becoming one," Harry mumbled. He had no idea why Draco was being so honest, anyway.

"Yeah, but I'm never one to do things half-way, hm?" Draco joked. "My first appointment I was a total wreck. I couldn't bring myself to trust someone who was paying me for sex, and it made my hatred for humanity grow even larger. Then, he actually showed up at the door. He was a Quidditch player, though I won't say which team. He was charming, interesting, and hiding a very gay secret from the press."

Harry frowned, still not quite understanding.

"And so I talked to him. For hours. He never even asked me to do anything," he recalled. "When we had sex, it was because I wanted to and he wanted to."

"So you met one gorgeous bloke and decided that they would all be that great?"

"Hardly. But I had some growing faith in me, as skeptical as I was. I learned with each client, though. At first they were seemingly made of stone, but that melted away. At their heart they were artists, poets, comedians, and philosophers. It made me see something that I'd never seen before. That once you crack down the walls around people, I think most of them are innately good."

Harry thought that was the biggest load of rubbish he'd ever heard. "Even the ones that buy prostitutes?"

"Even you, Potter," Draco countered. "Think of your happiest memory. Were you doing it alone?"

"No," he muttered, not seeing how this related to selling one's body.

"Exactly. It took me a long time to come to this, but now I know. It's not things or money that makes us happy, it's people."

"So this is your best way to connect to people?"

"Males specifically, I suppose," Draco lamented. He'd known many interesting women in his life, but the attraction was never there.

Finally, it was time for Harry to ask what was really bothering him. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"What, the truth?"

"Yeah," Harry murmured lamely.

"It's what makes me happy. I hate lies," Draco admitted. He'd suffered through enough of his parent's lies, friend's lies, and the lies of everyone around him to know that. "But I really like people." Honest, open people with nothing to feel ashamed of. Shame only held you back.

Harry felt like someone had punched him in the face. Draco really _was_ doing better after the war than he was. Draco had new friends, a job, a place of his own (most likely), and he was happy. Happy, of all things!

The years had been kind to Draco's appearance, as well. His toned but subdued muscles filled in all the right places, and his legs had to be miles long. Harry thought of himself in comparison as a bag of bones. Eating wasn't his strong suit anymore. "So, are we going to do this?" Draco asked.

"What?" Harry said before understanding what he was asking. "You—you want to? But we used to hate each other, I don't know if you've forgotten. You used to tell horrible jokes about my friends, and my parents!"

Draco's face twisted in worry. "I never meant them," he said quietly. "I was just jealous of the attention you were getting, and I fed into my father's lies about how you wanted to be adored by the public. I'm sorry."

What? Six years after the war and Draco says he's_ sorry_? No, that was too easy. That couldn't be it. That couldn't be the apology that Harry had wondered about and sometimes dreamed of. It couldn't truly be this easy. But if Draco was being honest… "How do I trust that you're telling the truth?"

A sad smile graced Draco's lips. "You can't tell. You just have to trust me."

"Well, I don't."

"I understand." Draco often looked back at how awful he'd been to the people around him in school. He was a mess of anger back then, too.

Harry felt like screaming. "Would you quit being so calm over this?!" he demanded. "You're selling your body, my life is a mess, and I ordered you as a _prostitute_! Please tell me that you are as freaked out as I am because I can't deal with this!"

Draco shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

"You're so different," Harry marveled, shaking his head. Where were the snide remarks? What about the he insults and taunting? "I can't have sex with you. I need to lie down."

With what could have been mistaken for a tiny smile, Draco nodded. "Here," he offered his hand.

"I told you, I don't want—"

"I'm offering to lead you to the bed, Potter. Now take my hand before you pass out in the damn chair and I have to carry you."

He had a point. Warily, Harry accepted his grasp. It was immediately a mistake, because he smelled fantastic.

With all the care Draco possessed, he led the disoriented man out of the living space and into the bedroom, where a green silk canopy bed welcomed Harry with open arms as he climbed in. "Thanks," he muttered, hoping Draco wouldn't hear.

"No need to thank me," Draco responded, sitting down at the foot of the bed.

"You can go home now."

"Actually, I'm on the clock. You paid for a full night," he grinned, much to Harry's chagrin.

He tensed up in the bed. "Well, like I said, I'm not having sex with you."

"That's fine, Holden Caulfield," Draco teased.

Slightly horrified, Harry sat up in the bed. "What? Draco, that's… The Catcher in the Rye is a muggle book," he gasped.

"They're not half bad at writing, either," Draco shrugged. "Though Holden's whining really did get to me sometimes, I liked him."

"You're the only one who does," Harry snorted.

"It's like I said earlier. Underneath his abrasive, lying, confused, and often arrogant surface, I think he was a very complex person. The whole book he's obsessed with making connections to people in order to rid himself of this horribly lonely sense of dread looming over him. The more I think about it… Potter, he reminds me of you."

Harry gave him a glare. "I don't call everyone a 'phony'."

"Not his outside traits," Draco sighed. "The ones at the heart of his character. Just a boy trying to keep everyone safe and driving himself so crazy over it that he can barely hold on to his connections and relationships."

"I am _not _a catcher in the rye."

_Sure you're not_, Draco thought with a smile. "Anyway, I suppose we can compare you to literary figures another day. Do you need anything?"

Harry's brow furrowed in confusion.

"For me to call room service for food, a bath, a foot rub…" Draco listed.

"That would be, erm, nice. The last one. If you want to."

Draco smiled and leaned forward to remove Harry's shoes. At first, Harry nearly jumped out of the bed when Draco touched him. Next came his socks, and then Draco's skin was touching his for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

At the first grind of Draco's hand against his feet, Harry nearly flinched away at the pain.

"You'll get used to it. It's deep tissue," Draco told him clinically.

So, as mental as this whole thing was, Harry let himself relax. His eyes focused on the ceiling tiles and the patterns they made as Draco took away every pain from his arched and gnarled feet. Harry had never really liked feet, always thought they were gross. He sort of pitied Draco.

Either way, Draco continued his massage up to Harry's thin ankles and Harry said nothing about the movement. Draco's fingers were being far too good to his aching muscles to call it quits now.

"If you turn over," Draco said. "I could give you a back rub."

The lack of lumbar support in Harry's bed had him almost rolling right onto his stomach. Instead, he tried to look controlled as he shifted positions in the bed. It was just a massage, it was just a massage, it was just a massage…

Slowly, Draco moved to straddle Harry's legs, careful to keep from scaring him off with any sudden movement. It was sort of like trying to keep a balance of attention with a deer fawn. If this got too sexual too fast, Harry would be gone.

_And he really looks like he needs to get laid_, Draco thought as his thumbs pressed down hard on Harry's back.

Searching for knots and tension was easy with Harry since they were littered across his dorsal, trapezius… Every muscle that could possibly have an ache and a pain seemed to have at least three. Dedicatedly, Draco worked on one tender spot alongside the slope of Harry's spine.

An involuntary moan escaped Harry's mouth, his fingers digging into the clean sheets.

Carefully, Draco flattened his palm and slid it under Harry's muggle t-shirt. Immediately, Harry reacted with a shocked spasm.

"Sorry, your shirt was bunching up," Draco tried to explain.

"It's fine. It's just, ah, your hands are warm."

With a smile, Draco continued his work. Harry was in bliss with every soothing touch and roll of Draco's knuckles across the small of his back. "Do you sit at a desk a lot?"

Harry would have shrugged, but his shoulders were currently occupied. "No, I just kind of prop myself up when I sit."

"Yeah, that's why," Draco murmured, his voice soft. "You probably need to buy some sturdier pillows, or I could teach you a few muscle loosening spells. It's all about mobility."

"Oh, definitely," Harry joked, laughing at the strangeness of it all.

Hearing Harry at rest and laughing was a refreshing sound for Draco. He'd almost thought Harry had lost that dry, sarcastic humor. In its own way, that made Harry a little indomitable. "That better?"

"Much."

"Good," Draco said, letting himself fall to the wayside of the bed and kicking off his own boots.

Harry turned his head on the pillow to look at his old arch-nemesis with a strange curiosity. Draco was almost caring now. "Thanks."

Draco turned his head to face Harry and chuckled softly, playing with the hair on the back of Harry's neck. "What did I say about thanking me?"

At that, Harry inched away from him on the bed so that they couldn't touch.

"Harry Potter, are you going to bed at eight o'clock at night?" Draco asked, laughing a little insensitively. After all, people couldn't change their habits too much.

"No," Harry mumbled a little pathetically. He just didn't want Draco touching him, or coming near him. The first time in a long time that someone was willing to have sex with him, and Harry couldn't even look at him. "There's too much history between us. You can leave and go home, nothing's going to happen tonight."

Draco felt that something was compelling him to stay. If people were innately good, then Harry had to be a breed of his own. Draco had read The Quibbler and heard the rumors, and Harry had been willing to die for all of their sakes. "That's okay. I'm not the one who called you, you know."

"I know," Harry snapped, right back to his edgy defensive maneuvers. After a beat of silence, the guilt was unstoppable. He sat up, looking down at Draco. "I'm sorry. Not just for now, you know. But for everything, too."

Saying that made something click inside of Draco. An enemy became a friend. "I forgive you. I don't blame you, since I was such a little shit to you."

That made Harry laugh again. "Yeah, but in the end we were never really so adverse to one another." Another question came to mind, so his voice was cautious and careful. "Why did you never tell Bellatrix that it was me in the Manor?"

Draco hadn't been expecting that one, so it took him a moment to delve back into the painful memory. "It was the same reason that you didn't let me burn in the Room of Requirement," Draco knew. "You wouldn't have been the only one entirely screwed over if Voldemort had won, too. You were our only hope."

The 'our' caught Harry's attention. "I'm sorry about Crabbe, too," he said in a hushed voice in reverence for another life lost because of him. He could still feel the flames singing his skin as he closed his eyes.

"That wasn't your fault." The betrayal of Vincent Crabbe was another one of the demons that Draco had grappled with before his current sense of peace with himself.

Harry had been told that things 'weren't his fault' since the day the war began. In his opinion, that was a steaming load of shit. Voldemort's second war was about killing Harry, and anyone who stood in his way. Remus, Sirius, Severus, Dumbledore, Lily, James, Tonks, Moody, Scrimgeour, and Fred…

"Harry?"

"Let's watch some television," Harry said loudly, hoping to dispel any further talk of the war. Snatching the remote off of a nearby table, he turned the television on and silently prayed that it had cable.

When the dark screen lit up, Draco let out a laugh. "Pay-per-view porn. How classy."

On the screen, two busty ladies were shedding their bikini tops in the sand for a messy session of beach sex. "And they're not even really gay," Harry sighed, looking at their long, sharp, French-tipped fingernails.

"A travesty," agreed Draco, quickly catching on for Harry's need for a subject matter that wasn't life-or-death. "I weep for authenticity."

Harry flipped the channel up one and got a rather disturbing view of a pizza-boy making a 'delivery' into a woman who looked old enough to be his mother. "Is it all porn?" he asked, laughing. What he would have done for a little Top Gear right then and there.

"Possibly. Try the next one?" The next channel wasn't any less lustful, but at least it was two men this time and the moans were fake enough to crack Draco up. "Oh, Harry. If only I had known you were gay in school."

Raising an eyebrow, Harry looked from the screen and over to Draco, hair now mussed and looking a little more casual. "What, would we have had an illicit affair?"

"Who knows," Draco grinned. "Maybe we could have had trysts in the dungeons and exchanged longing looks across the Great Hall."

Harry smirked. "I always thought that was more Nott and Colin's thing."

"I like one-upping my friends," Draco said simply and smugly. "It would have rocked the world, you have to admit. We could have changed everything."

"Yeah," Harry admitted, smiling. "There would be even more paparazzi after us, too."

"They'd never quit asking when we'd be married."

"They'd get supposed 'eye-witness' accounts of our depraved homosexual lives from our 'close friends' who can't reveal their identity."

"They'd give us a _couple name_."

Harry almost doubled over laughing. "What, like, Harco?"

"No, that sounds ridiculous," Draco huffed, leaning back. Obviously, his name came first in any mish-mosh of letters that they were making. "They'd call us _Drarry_."

It sounded just as ridiculous, but Harry grinned anyway. "So, all we need is a time machine."

"Nah, I think I like where I've ended up," Draco told him, crossing his legs and turning his attention back to the two men on the screen busy sucking each other off.

"In a hotel room next to a celebrity who paid hundreds of galleons for you?"

"Of course. I'm worth every sickle."

"Still not having sex with you."

Draco rested his arms behind his head. "Whatever, Holden."


	3. Chapter 3: Drift

AN: Thanks for the small gathering of followers around this!

**Chapter 3: Drift**

It had been one of the stranger nights of Harry's life. When he and Draco discovered the one channel that didn't have porn on it, it was a wildly cheesy soap opera involving secret siblings, illicit love affairs, and bastard children spawning out of every one of the sexual encounters that were had. It made Harry grateful that there was zero chance of pregnancy in homosexuality. Well, there was already a zero chance with Harry's lack of action anyway.

When Harry awoke in the morning, he was so used to being solitary that he made the mistake of rolling over, almost onto Draco.

"Good morning," Draco laughed, having woken up only minutes before.

It nearly scared Harry out of his skin. "Fuck!" he gasped as he sat up, his legs sore from sleeping in his muggle jeans. Only a moment later did Harry realize that his life wasn't in danger, it was just his whore. "Oh."

"You sound like you need some coffee."

Harry made a face. "Don't bother. I hate the stuff."

That was an interesting surprise to Draco, but it made sense. Harry lulled in and out of sleep so easily home alone that he probably didn't even need sleeping drafts. Sometimes, Draco did. "Breakfast, then?" he asked carefully.

"Why are you still here?" Harry questioned sleepily, running a hand through his mussed hair.

"A night is a night," Draco shrugged. "Your twelve hours is over at eight, and it's seven-thirty."

Of all things, Harry hadn't expected Draco to be an early riser. "Oh," he murmured. "You don't have to stick around, though."

A couple men in Draco's past had wanted him out of the room right after they shagged, but this was a new one. "Let me order you breakfast."

Finally, Harry gave in and nodded. At least it would give them something to do before the session was over.

When Draco swung his legs out of the bed, Harry's jaw nearly broke off of its hinges. While Harry had fallen asleep between laughs during the evening and hadn't been able to change out of his day-clothes, it seemed Draco had made himself at home.

His naked body almost glowed in the dingy lights as he operated the muggle phone. Wait, was a Malfoy doing something _muggle_? Harry would have to analyze that when Draco's sculpted and pale body wasn't in full display in front of him.

Every small bump of vertebrae was visible along his back, from the start of his icy-blonde hair. It made Harry shift in the bed, his eyes unable to stop travelling down to his round arse, soft thighs, sculpted calves…

It only then occurred to Harry that Draco had finished the phone call and was staring right at him. "Sorry!" he blushed involuntarily, turning his face away to preserve some kind of modesty.

Draco was trying his best not to laugh at Potter, he really was. "Don't be," he grinned. "I don't exactly mind people looking."

Hoping he was onto something, Draco crawled back into the bed and rested his hand on Harry's knee. The Gryffindor's mouth went dry before he could even get a word of protest (or encouragement) out of his stunned face.

"I don't mind people touching, either," Draco purred, moving close enough to feel Harry's ragged breaths escape him.

Finally, Harry regained control over the body that had so willingly betrayed him. "That's, ah, nice for you and other people. Lots of other blokes, I guess. Lots. Sorry, not to imply that you sleep with too many guys, I mean that's more of a personal opinion—" Harry cut himself off before things got even worse. "Not now, okay? I know it seems a little hypocritical."

Draco shook his head and drew back. "It's not hypocritical," he told Harry gently. "You can ask for me stop whenever you want."

"Then, well. I want. You to stop, I mean."

Backing off even further, Draco decided this would be a situation better handled with clothes on. He crept back to his trousers and slipped them back on. "I ordered pancakes, is that good?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded, immediately regretting his decision. In frustration, he curled his knees into his chest. Sure, objectively, having sex with Draco would be fantastic. Subjectively, the memories he brought up and that horrifying way he figured Harry out in under seconds made him want to never think of the name 'Draco' again.

"I'm glad to see you, you know."

"What?"

"I've always wanted to be able to properly bury the hatchet with you," Draco admitted as he slid the grey shirt back on over his head.

"Oh. Well, yeah. I guess that's what we did." It sounded more productive than 'paid for sex and watched soap operas instead'.

Even deeper down in Draco's wants and needs, something compelled him to keep talking. There was an inkling of worry for Harry pooling in his mind. "You can book another appointment whenever you want," he offered lamely. "Even if you just want to talk."

"You're one expensive therapist," Harry laughed bitterly before realizing what he'd said.

Luckily, Draco laughed too. "Here," he said, grabbing a nearby hotel pen and pad to scribble down his address. "Either owl Natasha again or just owl me. Words are free."

"How deep," Harry snarked, his filter of sarcasm having deteriorated over time.

Draco laughed at that, too. That had to be the money laughing; wasn't it? "Yeah, yeah, Holden. Just drop me a line so I don't have to wonder whether or not you drown in your couch."

Part of Harry wanted to tell Draco to never call him that again, but his humor was back with vengeance. "Sure, Sunny," he teased right back.

"Hey, she wasn't into talking," Draco reminded him. "Consider yourself lucky."

There was a knock on the door for room service, and Harry wondered if he really had gotten lucky having accidentally stumbled into Draco's business.

XxXxX

When Harry flooed back to Grimmauld Place, it felt as if someone screwed his head on the wrong way.

The whole encounter with Draco had messed with his psyche and his daily schedule.

Breakfast would no longer be necessary since he'd eaten with Draco, so he milled about the kitchen a little pointlessly.

"Harry?"

The voice had him flying back to grasp the cold metal kitchen counter, heart racing. He was being robbed, he was being killed, he was being tortured–

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asked, following up her husband's initial question.

The picture of concerned friends, Ron had shed his Head Auror uniform for a more comfortable Weasley sweatshirt while Hermione maintained her usual style.

"You surprised me," Harry said through gritted teeth. He could almost see Ron's face turn red with anger over what Harry had just paid for. Ron was the law, and Harry was now technically a criminal.

"We used the key to get in," Hermione comforted, walking towards her mess of a friend. "We were worried."

When weren't they worried? "I'm fine," Harry insisted, backing away from Hermione's touch to start some tea for his uninvited guests.

"Harry," Ron muttered grimly. "Where were you last night?"

Harry froze in front of the teapot. "I was out. Why?"

When he turned back around to get a good look at Ron, Harry noted that his face was pastier than usual. The whiteness almost covered his freckles. "We have a problem."

It felt like Harry's stomach had plummeted into his shoes. "What is it?"

"It's Ginny," Hermione said carefully, a little more composed than her husband.

"What about Ginny?" Harry hadn't talked with Ginny since their breakup after the war and a few forced sentences across the Weasley dinner table.

"Have you heard from her at all?" Ron asked.

"No, why? What's going on?"

"You know I can't give details about ongoing investigations to civilians," Ron murmured, shifting his weight.

Harry could hear the 'come back to the Auror department' in the sentence and chose to ignore it. "Why is Ginny in the middle of an Auror investigation? No details, just give me an outline." He couldn't imagine her doing anything illegal even though he had the night before.

"She's not the one being persecuted," Hermione corrected. "We're just looking for her. She hasn't returned owls or calls, and when we went to her flat, she wasn't there."

"It hasn't been forty-eight hours," Ron said sourly. "So we can't officially call it a disappearance yet, but..."

"You think she's run away?" Harry asked, unhappily placed in the role of detective.

Ron's jaw hardened. "I don't know what I think anymore. Harry, I thought you loved her."

The sudden personal blindside had Harry reeling. "What?"

"Do you really not care that she could be in danger?"

"Of course I–"

"Does it sound like my sister to run away?" Ron demanded.

Harry shook his head 'no'. "I don't see what this has to do with me 'loving her'."

Ron's anger returned for a second wave. "Well, first you lead her on by making her think you're straight, and now you don't even seem concerned!"

"Ron, she's a grown woman," Harry sighed. Ginny had been surprisingly mature about their breakup, even though she had been hurt. Harry couldn't blame her. "Maybe she's just gone on holiday." Christmas was in a few weeks, anyway.

"_Holiday_?" Ron seethed. "She would tell someone! Our family is close!" Ron's family slowly had been shifting over the years to not include Harry.

When he looked at his schoolmates now, they were older and very different. The phrase 'drifting apart' came to mind. If Harry wanted to, he could have visited them more and invited them over more, but he was suffering from a lack of wanting, and an excess of needing. He needed release, sleep, relaxation... Hermione and Ron were always an arms-length away from those. They had new friends from their separate jobs, a new baby that Hermione had finally put in day-care, and they had changed. Harry had, too. It made him wonder if they or Draco were better off, since Harry wasn't in the running for 'Happiest' at all.

"She doesn't have to report everything she does to you," Harry defended Ginny.

Hermione crossed her arms in the threat of yet another fight between Harry and Ron. "Stop, the both of you," she huffed. "We only wanted to see if you were home, Harry. We wanted to make sure you were safe. The last thing we want is for you to get hurt."

Numbly, Harry nodded. "Well, I'm fine."

"Good," she said in spite of the fact that she knew it wasn't true. Contradicting him would only reignite the fight.

"I think you should go now."

Ron scowled. "So you can sit around and do nothing all day? Fuck, Harry. I'm worried about my sister and about you!"

"Shut up," Harry muttered as the teapot let out a low whistle.

"I've been 'shutting up' for years," Ron returned. "I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore. You're detached from everyone, including Ginny, you can't focus, you've been on your arse at home for too long! Are you even listening to me?"

Harry looked up from the teapot that he was emptying into his favorite mug. "Hm?" Maybe he had been listening, maybe he just was sick of Ron talking.

"Harry," Hermione sighed.

"I think you should both leave," he repeated, turning to them with the mug clasped securely in his hands.

"You can talk to us, Harry," she pressed on. "This isn't healthy, you can go back to the academy any time–"

Harry's knuckles turned white he clasped the mug so tightly. "I'm not going back to the academy. I'm never going to be an Auror."

Hermione wouldn't quit. "So what job do you want to have?"

"I don't know, okay?" Harry snapped. "I just need to figure some things out."

"But you could start somewhere, I could make some calls! It'd get you out of the house; you'd have more friends, maybe even meet a bloke–"

"Thanks, _mom_," Harry cut in, knowing that it would be hitting her where it really hurt. She had been so anxious about being a mother, even though she would be just perfect at it. "But you don't have to babysit me."

Immediately, he regretted that. It was downright mean. Hermione didn't deserve it; she was just trying to do what she thought was best...

"I'm sorry–"

"I think we should leave, then," Hermione said tersely. "I'll meet you outside, Ron."

The clack of her heels faded into the bellows of the old house before slammed the door shut.

If looks could kill, Ron would be a murderer right then and there. "She was just trying to help," he said. "And so was I."

Ron Weasley followed Hermione Weasley out of the door, leaving Harry all alone. Just like he wanted.

The house seemed to take a breath with him, the rickety stairs creaking as the heat adjusted itself to the winter chill let in by the open door.

If he was sticking to his precious daily routine (and honestly, when didn't he?), then next it was time to hop on the couch for some quality time with his television.

Pushing away all thoughts of the Weasley family, he grabbed the remote with its familiar and worn-down buttons.

Fortunately, Skins was on so he didn't have to flip through channels for long. He summoned a blanket, laid down, and let the warm berry scent of the tea swirl upwards to clear his mind. His thin fingers had at last loosened their death-grip on the beverage.

Then began the cycle of drifting between sleep, television, checking his muggle phone even though nobody was contacting him, and sipping hot tea.

If you weren't interested in relationships, accomplishments, friends, or life in general, it was near perfect.

That day especially, however, Harry felt like letting the ground swallow him up. Maybe if he went deep enough into the earth, he'd see hell.

In his mind, it never looked like the pictures he saw in documentaries and museums. The flowing rivers of ruby-hot lava devouring the souls of the damned never quite cut it for Harry Potter. Not that he even believed in a heaven or a hell.

But if hell were real, there would be no demons required.

Somewhere in his dream that night after he dragged himself up the stairs to his room and comforting bed, it came to life before him.

Harry had always figured the first circle of hell, formally known as Limbo, to look like the shore where Dobby had died in his arms. In the dream, he could see himself from a distance while Hermione and Ron looked to each other helplessly. The Brightest Witch of Her Age, the Head Auror, and the Chosen One couldn't stop a house elf from perishing no matter how great their magical abilities.

Most importantly, though, Harry knew why this memory was Limbo.

It was that moment when Dobby was suspended between life and death before them.

"_Dobby is...happy...to be with his friend...Harry...Potter..."_

Harry had always wondered whether or not that was the way that the free elf wanted to die. Dobby had years ahead of him, good years filled with life and Bellatrix Lestrange took them. She took Sirius' years, too.

In his dream, Harry could almost make out the ghost-like outline of his godfather.

"You hated Grimmauld Place," Harry murmured, wrapping a blanket that had materialized in the dream around his shoulders. "I took all of the artifacts out, I sold them and donated the money. I ripped down the wallpaper of your family tree." It didn't feel like enough.

As soon as he was there, Sirius was gone again in the icy wind. Harry could hear the younger version of himself still screaming for help.

"I should just burn it, shouldn't I, Padfoot? I should burn it all down."

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than he spotted a cavern that hadn't been there before. Or was it? In dream logic, the appearance of sandstone tombs was never considered out of the ordinary.

Harry walked to the opening, curious, and saw a pathway of stairs leading downwards. Distantly, Harry could hear the thump of some kind of music that he couldn't really hear the tune of.

As Harry descended into the Second Layer, his days of reading without end had at least come in handy in his dreams. Nightmares, really.

The Second Layer of hell, according to Dante Alighieri, was reserved for the lustful and those consumed by their sensual desires. In the story, an infernal wind blew them back and forth as they had thrown themselves around in life. Harry still thought the whole idea of hell was bullshit, but it was an interesting basis for a dream.

When the stairs fell away from Harry's bare feet, he dropped the blanket as well. It was starting to get hot down here.

The memory he had assigned to this level was of his first time having sex. The club had been packed wall-to-wall with men, and red strobe lights lit Harry's way across the floor. Even though the club had been shut down three weeks later, Harry remembered vividly that its name was The Renegade.

He hadn't known the man's name, and sometimes his face was blurry in memory, but Harry remembered that lurch of his stomach when he saw him. The quintessential homosexual male (gym-toned arms, tanned skin, every guy's wet dream ripped right from a magazine cover), dancing all by himself. It was a shame, really.

Harry saw the younger version of himself approach the man and whisper in his ear. There was that easy smile of his again as he led Harry back to the men's room.

Turning away from the memory, Harry didn't like recalling what happened afterward.

"_I don't kiss," he sighed as he pulled away from Harry's lips while still ripping off Harry's belt._

_Dumbfounded, Harry watched him. "What is that even supposed to mean?"_

"_I," the man continued, shedding his trousers. "Don't." Fingers closing around Harry's cock, blood pulsing in his ears. "Kiss."_

_It was probably rude to question someone's dating principles while they were jerking you off, but Harry couldn't help himself. "So you never kiss anyone, ever?" he asked, squirming into his touch anyway._

_Soon enough, the strokes shut him up. In a mess of come and quiet disappointment, Harry had made his sexual debut._

_He hadn't even yelled like they did in all of the stories he read. He hadn't cried out in passion, mostly because he did not know this man's name._

"_What's your name?" he asked, unable to take it anymore. Harry had to salvage this somehow._

_The man's blue eyes severed his head from his body. "What the fuck does it matter to you? I know who you are," he laughed before leaving the dirty stall and Harry to themselves._

Rather than stalk his old self, Harry wanted to know what was going on while he was being deflowered.

At the bar a crowd had formed around some man, but Harry was able to phase right through of it like he were some kind of spirit. It made his throat twist in knots.

"So anyway, I was blowing him, right? And he just starts praying for his god to save his soul or whatever, that he had sinned! I almost laughed so hard I bit his pecker, I swear," laughed a familiar voice with all the ease in the world.

"Harsh," Pansy Parkinson joked, leaning on the blonde's shoulder. "Now come on, you've almost finished your countdown. Who is the weirdest, most fucked up guy you've ever been paid to sleep with?"

Parkinson didn't notice Harry's approach, and neither did Theo and Colin. He'd never known that Colin had actually grown to _like_ his boyfriend's bizarre and Slytherin friends.

The only one who could see him was Draco. His gaze froze on Harry where everyone else seemed to see past him. Harry didn't dare make the first move.

"Potter?" Draco asked, stepping off of the barstool. Slowly, his friends faded into the background and the club left them. They were back in Grimmauld Place, but it wasn't Grimmauld Place…

"Call me 'Harry'," he said suddenly. "Now that we've buried the hatchet and I've gone mental enough to dream about you."

Draco shrugged. "Whatever suits you."

The skies outside the windows of Harry's slightly-off home were burdened with clouds ready to spill their rain at any moment. He didn't know if he wanted to wake up yet.

"And I can call you 'Draco'?"

"You can call me anything you want." Draco's voice was cold and his stance could only be described as predatory.

Harry shook his head. "I don't want to call you anything but your name. Was any of last night real? Or was it just because I paid you?"

Again, Draco shrugged. "A lady never shows all her cards at once."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Sure it does," Draco laughed in that carefree way of his, disappearing from view so that only his voice could be heard. "After all, _you_ thought of it."

With a kick of his feet, Harry woke up panting in his bed. Somehow, he'd managed to clutch a pillow close to his chest in a way that almost resembled spooning. It made Harry want to puke.

"I've gone mad," he realized quietly. After all, he was talking to himself.

Driven by his madness and sudden realization of it, he scrambled to his desk. It had almost dusted over from the lack of use, but the quills were still good. He dipped the first he could get his hands on in the black ink and tore a piece of parchment from the long-forgotten pile.

_Sunny,_

_When are you free next? I think I need to talk to you. I'll pay for your time, of course. I know how you Malfoys get when you think you're being underappreciated._

_-Holden_

Sending his feeble barn owl off with the letter was the easy part. The hard part was waiting for Draco's response.

Harry felt like a little runt stressing over his first date when he flopped back onto his bed. Usually, first dates would end in a quick and chaste kiss on the lips, but Harry wasn't entirely opposed to sampling what Draco had to offer anymore.

That would come after they talked. Maybe. If Harry liked the answers to the questions he posed. Every fiber of his being told him not to trust a man who told round and red-faced lawyers that they were good enough to sleep with someone who looked like Draco Malfoy did.

How many other customers did he even have?

That would have to be one of Harry's other questions.

Finally, a response came.

_Holden,_

_Of course I'll let you pay. I know how you Gryffindors get when you think you're doing something immoral. Tomorrow (or I suppose 'today', since you're owling me at such an odd hour of the evening. Should I be suspicious?), same time, same place. This time, I'll collect your inherited galleons at the hotel since you don't have to go through Natasha anymore._

_-Sunny_

And who the hell exactly was this 'Madam Natasha'? His _pimp_?

Harry practically sprinted to the bathroom for a shower. Sure, it was three in the morning, but he needed to shower! Men had probably come to Draco in all states of uncleanliness, mental disarray, and physical form. Harry could really only fix one of those in himself, so he got to scrubbing.

By the time Harry stepped out, the water had gone cold.

"Tomorrow," he said through the shivers, throwing on a fresh pair of cotton pyjamas. "Tomorrow."

Or, in Draco's words, tonight. Harry really had to get back to bed if he was going to be awake for his All Important Talk. For someone who slept so much, he was always tired. Hermione had once tried to point out statistics about some kind of mental health problem to do with that, but it was like Harry said. He'd tackled one problem that night anyway.

Crawling back into bed, he shut his eyes and hoped for the best.


	4. Chapter 4: Safe

**AN: **Oh, gosh. I really couldn't help them meta in this fic, I honestly couldn't. Also, maybe an AU with Draco as River Song and Harry as The Doctor? How about hell yes. Hope you enjoy!

**Chapter 4: Safe**

Draco extended his hand. "Comb," he demanded imperiously.

"I'm not your handmaiden," Natasha scoffed, leaning back in her own chair before the row of mirrors. With a makeup brush in her hand, she topped off her painted face with some setting powder.

"You're no fun," Draco decided, getting up to reach for his own damned comb. If he was going to have a massive case of freshly-shagged hair after he and Harry were through, he at least wanted to show up looking good.

Sure, Harry hadn't actually said he wanted to shag, but that was irrelevant. Oddly enough, Draco was the one who wanted to see what the Chosen One had beneath his robes. Harry had turned out to be funny, kind, and nothing like the papers said he was. There was a quiet humbleness to him, and Draco could see the anger lurking in him too.

It fascinated Draco more than he cared to admit.

The letter Harry had sent set Draco's blood afire. He'd never heard a man so desperate for domination in his life. In his mind's eye he could see the Great Potter chained down and whimpering with his arse in the air, loving every blow Draco gave him.

That and a thousand other fantasies milled about with Harry being the star of all of them. Sure, Draco had taken the riding crop and frilly panties to a few men who really wanted it, but the thought of seeing his childhood rival in complete submission before him was exhilarating. He'd forgiven Harry, but something still lingering in him wanted to see the man on his knees and begging for mercy.

Figuring Natasha might turn to stone with boredom if Draco didn't engage his boss and stuck to his fancies, he chatted on. "Anyway, are you working tonight?"

"The clinic needs me," Natasha sighed, referring to her second job at a local wizarding sexual health center. She refused to live in a world where one of her favorite activities wasn't being taught properly in public or private schools, and a world where it left said activity open to fatalities. She'd still been a little boy when the eighties rolled around and brought their plague with it. She remembered her mother telling her that was what happened to people who fell to perversion.

Draco grinned. "Saving the world from STDs and ignorance one horny twink at a time. They should build statues in your honor."

"You know they don't make statues for people like us," Natasha laughed along with him.

"I don't see why not. They've had some truly horrific-looking ones at the Ministry adorned with people who I can't even name." Harry had never let them put up a statue of him.

Finishing off her lip-liner, she looked to Draco and feigned shock. "You mean you haven't heard of the great Gondoline Oliphant? I'm ashamed. With your pureblood upbringing I would expect the utmost strict memorization of wizarding history."

"Wasn't he on chocolate frog cards?" Draco asked with a dim memory of opening one with Blaise on the Hogwarts Express that had a similar-sounding name.

"Was he? I can't recall," she sighed. "But I can name more than a few men on your client list that happen to also be on those cards."

Draco snorted out a laugh. "Someone can't seem to contain their curiosity about my appointment tonight." He couldn't contain his excitement, either, but he always loved to tease his friends a little.

"I only want to make sure you're satisfied with the match and keeping safe."

That had to be the thousandth time she'd told him to 'keep safe'. One of these days, he was just going to glue a condom to his forehead in order to quiet her urgings. "I'm perfectly satisfied," Draco said as the last piece of his hair fell into place. "And don't worry your pretty head. We haven't even gone past talking. It turns out he's a regular gentleman who prefers media to actual relations."

"Well then I hope you can show him otherwise," Natasha said, very pleased with herself. She swore, sometimes, she could be a regular matchmaker.

"As do I. Now, I hope you have fun telling teenage lesbians how to work a dental dam," Draco teased before standing and grabbing his coat.

He gave Natasha a quick kiss on the cheek before heading for the door. "Be—"

"I know, I know! I'll be safe!" Draco laughed before he ducked out.

In a way, Natasha wished she'd first used that term in a broader scope. She wasn't talking just about the condoms, spermicidal lube, and every other defensive measure to keep Draco physically safe. Something further than skin-deep concerned her.

Draco seemed almost giddy to gussy himself up and see Harry. Sure, Draco had developed a fondness for certain clients, gotten sad to see some go, and been happy for others who'd moved on. It had just never happened this fast.

_Be safe_, she thought again before leaving her workplace and extensive collection of vanity mirrors. _Be safe_.

XxXxX

Harry had arrived in the hotel room an hour early this time. He wanted to familiarize himself with the setting, and take in all the details of the many rooms and bathrooms. Maybe, if he assessed the turf enough, Harry wouldn't be so horribly nervous when Draco arrived.

Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, two sitting rooms and a television in almost every room. Hotel soaps and shampoos in the shower, mints in the drawers, and a mini-fridge stocked with insanely overpriced candies and mints. It was a suite prepared for a large family and their luggage when travelling. It made Harry want to laugh but he couldn't quite bring himself to.

It was already dark outside, so he turned on every light he could find. It definitely wasn't because he was afraid of the blackness that surrounded him at night. That totally wasn't why.

With the power bill undoubtedly being cranked as high as it could go, Harry sat down on couch where Draco had reclined at their last meeting. Without realizing it, he drifted into a pseudo-slumber that was almost always inevitable when he laid on anything comfortable and soft.

When he awoke, some different sort of fabric was under his cheek, and he wasn't sitting up anymore.

Cautiously, Harry opened his eyes. "Draco?"

"Yes, sleeping beauty?" he teased, having rested Harry's head on his lap when he saw the man snoring away looking rather uncomfortable upright.

"Oh," Harry responded quietly. In the grogginess of waking, he'd almost forgotten to flinch and run away from anyone who wanted to touch him. He was glad he forgot, because Draco's fingers in his hair felt strangely fantastic.

Unsure of what to say and slightly embarrassed, Harry closed his eyes before he spoke again.

"You sure like making pop culture references," he tried lamely.

Draco's fingers inched down to gently caress Harry's shoulder as he laughed softly enough to keep Harry comfortable. "As do you."

"Yeah," Harry murmured, leaning into Draco's descending touches. All of his questions and nerves had faded away for better or for worse.

Strong, steady hands cupped the small of Harry's back and kept on going. Harry wasn't sure if he wanted this, but it was happening and it made him feel good. Not very much did that, and the sensation was almost new.

The hands sloped down to grope at Harry's arse as Draco became more and more confident with each passing moment. He could have sworn he heard Harry let out a little moan.

Finally, his hand shifted to the front of Harry's trousers, ready to slip them off and finally—

"How many blokes have you slept with?" Harry blurted out suddenly.

Well, that was direct. "I don't exactly keep a tally on my wall or anything," Draco said, retracting his hand.

His mind no longer in a fog, Harry sat up. "Sorry, I mean, I just want to know."

Potter sure asked a lot of questions. "Well," Draco started. "Right now I have fifteen clients I regularly see."

"_Fifteen_?"

"I'm not your boyfriend, Harry," Draco laughed suddenly, shifting on the couch. "You don't need to look so bothered."

"I'm not," Harry lied. "Bothered, that is. I just wanted to know. If you had to, you know, ballpark a number…" His eyes stayed glued to the floor, hoping he wasn't saying the wrong thing.

Draco sighed. "You know, it's not like I'm with a different guy every night. Some can only do weekends, or a couple hours, or—"

"Please, just a number."

As proud as Draco was of his job, independent cash flow, and lifestyle, this was a tough one for him to admit. "I'd say…" He factored in the years, the amount of customers who joined and left sporadically, one-night stands, and more. "Over a hundred."

The statement hit Harry right in the stomach. Maybe he didn't want answers. "And that's all business you get from your… Natasha?"

Was Harry trying to ask about the Madam's cut of the money? "She's my manager," he explained carefully. The number seemed to have shocked Harry into stupidity. "I can leave whenever I want to."

"I know, you mentioned that, but I just don't think I understand," Harry frowned, eyes now boring into the floor. Maybe a set of burns would appear there soon.

"What don't you understand?" Draco asked, slightly annoyed. Most clients left all of that pity for the whore with the heart of gold in the first appointment.

This time, Harry swallowed his nerves and tried to look at Draco. "Don't you want something more?"

That was hilarious, from the Boy Who Lived to Waste Away in Bed. Still, Draco knew that wasn't his fault. Harry had unresolved issues that made Draco want to ring up a couple of his more mentally-inclined therapists rather than take the physical route he loved so much. "Sex means different things to different people," he shrugged, keeping his patience level. "If I ever wanted something more, I'd leave."

But how could Draco ever want anything more if he knew nothing more? What if he fell in love one day and he couldn't tell it apart from his daily work? It worried Harry. "Do you ever think about getting married, or falling in love?"

Draco gave him a little smile. "I think about it, yeah, but thus far I don't really want it. I sort of need to fall for someone before I think of futures together. And I can tell what you're thinking, too. That even if I fell for someone that they wouldn't reciprocate it since I'm the one the pay to show up and pay to leave. I've had boyfriends, you know."

"While you were…?" Harry was dumbfounded. If Draco was his, he'd never let any other man touch him. Not that he wanted Draco as his own, anyway.

"Yes, while I was working," Draco told him. "They were okay with it. Like I said, sex means different things to different people. At the end of the day they knew I fancied them the most, and that I'd leave them if I felt differently, or leave my job if I felt inclined to do so for the sake of monogamy."

Those men had a complex foreign to Harry. Trust in another human being to the degree that they didn't even mind their boyfriend sleeping around for gold. "Wow."

"It's not horribly strange," Draco shrugged. "Natasha used to work when she had a boyfriend. She gave it up when she married him, though."

The knowledge that this mysterious Madam used to be a working girl herself had Harry feeling a little more assured. "It's just…" he tried, getting back to the manner at hand. "I don't know how I feel about being one out of a hundred."

"You of all people should know that the past is the past," Draco sighed, resting a hand on Harry's shoulder. He felt tense, even after the massage from the other night. "It doesn't ruin the future, and especially not the present."

Harry shook his head, ears pounding with each heartbeat and his eyes suddenly welling up. No, he couldn't let Draco see him like this, it was pathetic, it was what losers did, and it wasn't even how he wanted to feel. "It does ruin the present," he told Draco, trying to pretend he was rubbing his eyes because he was tired. "It does all the time."

Concerned, Draco leaned forward. "Harry…" Draco murmured, gently rubbing his back and pulling closer to the shaking man.

"The past ruins everything," Harry continued with gritted teeth. "It's always there, even when you're happy for a second or you have a good day or you meet a great bloke it's still there at the end of the day and you can't make it disappear." And Merlin, it hurt.

Draco didn't hesitate a moment longer from pulling Harry into a tight embrace. "You don't have to make it disappear, Harry. You've been too guilty for too long," he could tell.

"I deserve to be. Tom Riddle may have killed those people but what he really wanted was me. I was a coward, hiding from him when all I had to do was let him kill me. Yeah, he killed the part of him that was in me, but still! I led the Battle of Hogwarts!" His voice rose with each angry admission, clinging to Draco like a drowning man. "I went to every one of their funerals to face their families, and fuck, if you could have seen their faces—it was awful. I caused their deaths."

"No," Draco cut in. "You didn't—"

"I did," Harry argued, pulling back and standing up. His legs felt numb and he was surprised they worked. "The papers are right! I lived and there's no point to it. I couldn't handle being an Auror, I'm a shite friend to Ron and Hermione, I fucked with Ginny's heart for years, I can't even leave my godfather's house, and _dammit_, Draco! Don't you remember what I did to you in the Prefect's Bathroom?"

The room was silent aside from Harry's choked panting.

Slowly, Draco moved to stand and Harry's brain jumped to the worst conclusions. _He hates me. He hates me and this whole thing has been a lie for money. Why did I ever think I could be vulnerable in front of him? He knows too much now, he'll tell the press—_

Harry's train of thought was derailed entirely when he felt Draco's arms wrap around him again. "I remember," he whispered, holding the crumbling man close. "And I forgive you."

"You can't—" Harry sobbed out. "You can't forgive me just like that! That's too easy when I did something so awful! I haven't done anything to make it up to you but cry in front of you in a depraved hotel and not even have sex with you!"

Draco tightened his grip. "Fuck, Harry, _shut up_. I forgive you, now deal with it. You don't get to decide how I feel; you can only decide how you feel. You need to forgive yourself."

"I can't," he managed.

"And you don't have to be worried that I'm the one pressuring you into sex or something," Draco sighed. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You don't have to be an Auror, or fancy a Weaselette, or even leave Sirius' house. You just need to be _happy_." Mostly because Draco couldn't stand Harry not being happy a second longer.

Harry shook his head in Draco's shoulder. "I don't know how."

The suspicion that Harry's problem was a whole mess of depression and anxiety was fact to Draco at this point. "That's okay," he murmured into him. "I know you can't help this, and I was wondering if you wanted to talk to a—"

"No," Harry said, horrified that Draco would even mention that. A hooker telling him to get mental help was some kind of insult, he knew that at least.

"Fine, if you're too proud, then why don't you just talk to me?" Draco sighed, knowing that question wouldn't have gone over well in any universe. Bloody Gryffindor that he mysteriously began to care about.

Harry's head ached with each passing second. He wanted to crawl back into his bed, to before meeting Draco again and having his fucked-up life laid out in front of his eyes. Ignorance was bliss, it really was. "I don't know."

Draco decided to start with something easy. He took a deep breath, and pulled Harry up by his shoulders so that they were looking into each other's eyes. He needed Harry to trust him more than anything. "Tell me what you need. Anything," he prompted, expecting Harry to talk or ask for some food or to leave Draco standing there feeling like an idiot.

What Draco was not expecting was Harry kissing him. Full-on, mouth-to-mouth,_ kissing_.

Sick with need, Harry's hands didn't know where to start first. Luckily, Draco moved close enough for every option to be available. The curve of his hips, the taste of his tongue, the intoxicating smell of his cologne; it was all there and Harry would be damned if he let a single detail pass him by.

Draco moaned into his mouth as Harry's hands slid down the back of his pants, squeezing his arse cheeks hard.

If this was what Harry wanted, Draco was going to make sure he never forgot it.

Roughly, he pushed Harry's back to the closest wall and smirked against his lips when Harry let himself so easily be moved. Without hesitating, his thigh pressed between Harry's legs and rocked into him. As out-of-practice as Harry was, his body rutted against Draco without a second thought.

"Bed," he gasped against Draco's mouth, not really sure as to how long he was going to last.

Draco's hand found Harry's to form a sloppy grip, one where all the fingers were in the wrong spaces but nobody really noticed. With that, Draco whisked him away into the bedroom so fast his head spun. Only when his back fell onto the mattress was he even remotely sure of where he was.

Not even Draco could hide how eager he was.

He broke the kiss for a second to rid himself of his tight shirt, so Harry's hands flew to take his own off. Clumsily, he got it over his head before Draco had to help him with it.

When Harry got a good look at Draco's chest, he breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought there'd be scars."

"And exactly how long have you been thinking about me naked?" Draco joked breathlessly, removing Harry's pants as fast as he could so all of the body would be his.

Harry didn't even care about the sudden exposure, especially not when Draco was looking at him like a starved lion. "Too long," he gasped as Draco's tongue came down on the side of his neck, followed by a rough scrape of teeth. "Fuck, even before I knew you were doing this, I wanked about you."

"Dirty boy," Draco murmured into his ear before sliding a hand down to capture a perky pink nipple in between his fingers.

Harry moaned, head falling to the side. "Harder," he asked without realizing he'd spoken out loud.

At that, Draco dipped down to his reddening nipple and dragged his teeth across the sensitive skin as Harry's groans filled the air. Mercilessly, he clamped down with his teeth and sucked. Harry's pleasure was delicious in his mouth, and every little submissive noise Harry made had Draco aching to rid himself of his own trousers.

Drawing his wand from his pocket, Draco Vanished his tight pants without a second thought. "So fucking gorgeous," he murmured as he stroked his freed cock. "Tell me what you need, my pretty boy. I can give you everything."

"I need you in me," Harry gasped as he continued to press his hips up and along with Draco's. As many times as he had imagined Draco Malfoy naked on top of him and fulfilling his every fantasy, it would never compare to reality. Draco was molten hot, muscles taut with a purpose that Harry knew was dedicated all to him.

Hundred men be damned, in that moment Draco was his.

Draco almost ripped the condom packet into shreds he was so ready. When it finally was on, Harry had taken note of it. Really, he chose to ignore the rubber barrier. He knew why it was there, but thoughts of all the other men Draco had been with would no doubt spoil the moment.

"Do you have—," Harry began to ask before he saw the travel-size bottle of lubricant in Draco's hand. "Oh."

"Always prepared," Draco grinned. As Harry looked down across the length of his open legs to see Draco resting between them, he wondered if the other man was insane. Weren't whores supposed to hate this?

Before Harry could ponder the prostitutes in the many episodes of Law and Order he'd watched, Draco's lube-covered finger pressed up against the length of his prick.

"Fuck," he murmured, feeling Draco slide all the way down the shaft, past his scrotum, and to his puckered hole.

Draco couldn't help himself; he pressed a kiss to the tip of that beautiful member. Harry needed this, and he knew it. "Relax, Harry. I need you to relax for me."

Harry obeyed without a word and spread his legs even wider in spite of the warm blush on his face. Draco was right, he was a dirty boy.

Carefully, Draco pushed one finger inside of him. Harry's face twisted at the familiar pain. It really had been too long. Even though he was one in a hundred for Draco, Draco was only one in four for Harry.

Once he adjusted, Draco added a second finger and wrapped his free hand around Harry's cock to keep it from flagging. He was going to have to restrain himself from how rough he usually went, he knew that. The last thing Draco wanted was to hurt Harry their first time.

Harry, on the other hand, was open to any kind of pain Draco could give him. "Please," he whimpered, pushing back on the fingers no matter how tightly his muscles clenched. "I need you in me, I'll do anything."

Anything? Oh, that fascinated Draco even more. He'd have to try that out later, and maybe even get a little preview now. "Beg," he told him, lining the head up with Harry's opened hole. "Tell me how bad you need it; tell me why you want it."

Harry let out a low growl. "I need it bad, okay?" he murmured.

"I barely even heard that. What is it you need again?"

"I need your cock," Harry said through the blush. "I need your big cock inside me, fucking me."

Draco smirked. "Good boy. Now what's the magic word?"

"I can think of a few," Harry said sarcastically before meeting Draco's eyes and seeing how dark they'd grown with lust. He swallowed back his pride. "Please, Draco. Please."

Draco sunk his fingernails into Harry's hips as he pushed in. "_Harry_," he shuddered as his blinding heat enveloped him. Fuck, he was tight enough to be a virgin.

The thrusts started out tender with Draco desperately trying to restrain himself. As they climbed in intensity, Harry's legs wrapped around Draco's waist to take him in deeper. "Yes," Harry moaned, the combination of Draco's languid strokes and thrusts of the head of his cock right into Harry's prostate. _Now _Harry knew why Draco was so expensive.

Harry felt so _open_, so raw. Each grunt that Draco made pushing forward into him was heaven, now easily sliding in and out of his hole. "Harry," he groaned into his neck, the moment being punctuated by the slap of their skin.

In response, Harry pushed back onto him even harder. Draco's arms held him tight, almost lifting him off of the bed when the final stroke of Draco's hand had bother of them coming at once.

Harry's toes curled under, his cock exploding in between them in time with Draco's. Neither of them managed to say anything in the heat of the moment and the beautiful clench of Harry's arse, but it didn't matter. It was messy, fantastic, and just what Harry needed; a release.

The second Draco rolled off of him, Harry let out a happy sigh. For a moment, the world was quiet and slightly wonderful.

Even though Draco was busy tossing the condom, Harry didn't feel casting any cleaning spells.

When he moved his hand out on the bed, he could feel Draco lying next to him. For once, Harry didn't want to fall asleep. "Have you ever watched a show called 'Doctor Who'?"

In the afterglow of sex, Draco took that as a sign to curl up against Harry. "No, why?" he murmured into his arm.

"Since I figured that the televisions here wouldn't have anything as entertaining as that, I may have brought DVDs," Harry said with a smile. When he saw Draco's eyebrows raise, he laughed and rolled over to face him. "What? It's my favorite show."

"Oh, your favorite?" Draco asked, grinning. "As a pretty big fan of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, I understand the weight behind a favorite show."

Harry laughed, finding Draco's choice in media very true to himself. "This one's got Billie Piper in it, if that helps."

"Sounds fantastic. What's it about? I've only seen commercials," Draco wondered out loud.

"It's about this blue box, and this bloke who's an alien, and he killed his whole race, but it was only to end the time war, and—"

"I think I'll just pick it up as we go along," Draco cut him off, slightly disturbed.

Harry pushed himself off of the bed only for a moment to shove the Series One DVD into the player below the flat-screen where'd they'd watched porno just two nights ago. "I promise it starts to make sense eventually."

"I'll just trust you on that," Draco laughed, leaning back and shifting to leave an arm wrapped around the headboard where Harry moved to fill only moments later.

Leaning into Draco's arms and preparing for an all-night marathon, Harry pressed 'play'.


	5. Chapter 5: Streetwalking

**AN: **Thanks again for the reviews and views! You are all fabulous. Also, I cannot resist the Tholin in my soul. It's my goal to convert the Harry Potter world to this ship, honestly. Anyway, have fun reading!

**Chapter 5: Streetwalking**

When all the DVDs were in their proper place, Harry didn't even feel like resting on the couch. He also didn't feel like heading right for the refrigerator. It was a strange, alive thrumming in his bones that kept him moving.

After Draco and he had blown all the way through series one of Doctor Who, the Slytherin was hooked. With a strong affinity for Captain Jack Harkness, Draco had been at the edge of the bed when he thought his favorite character had perished at the hands of a Dalek. Luckily, everything worked out in the end.

The next time they met up, Draco said that series two better be in Harry's hand.

Harry had promised him that it most definitely would be. However, he warned against going too fast since series four was about to start up again once Christmas passed by. Draco had been alight at the idea of a Christmas special, and happened to fancy David Tennant in a suit.

Harry did as well, but that was beside the point.

The point was that he was alone in Grimmauld Place when he had motivation to be somewhere else. That was a rare occurrence, and he had to take advantage of it.

But where was he supposed to go?

Ron and Hermione were cross with him, and Ginny was bloody /missing/. Maybe he'd send the Weasleys an owl to ask if she had returned.

Scrawling a quick one out, he sent his barn owl on her way to deliver the message. In the meantime, Harry Potter had to figure out what people his age did for fun at one in the afternoon.

Too early for clubs, and too late for coffee. To get the gears in his mind properly spinning, Harry almost barreled out of the door.

The icy cold hit him like a brick wall. "_Fuck_." Ah, right. It was winter in England.

Harry rushed back inside to the dark wood house, searching for a coat. Coat, coat, where did he keep his costs? Usually Harry just apparated everywhere.

After flitting up and down the stairs enough times, he spotted a heavy-looking black robe hanging on the bannister. "Perfect," he sighed, slipping the robe on over the clothes that Draco had torn off of him the night before.

He didn't want to change or shower just yet. Harry liked Draco's scent on his skin, and the warm feeling Draco put in him.

Now readily dressed, Harry emerged from Grimmauld Place once more.

The cold still nipped at Harry's nose, but he didn't mind. He just stuffed his hands in his pockets, picked a direction in the street, and walked. All he did was walk, really.

Walk and think about Draco, of course. He probably shouldn't have been so bloody enchanted with a man he'd had to hand a sack of gold to in the morning, but there he was.

When Harry had woken up in the morning, Draco's lips were wrapped around Harry's morning erection. Harry normally would have jumped right out of the bed, but it brought a lazy smile to his face.

_"Quite the way to wake me up."_

_Draco let the head of Harry's leaking cock fall from his lips. "I'm a creative bloke," he grinned before resuming his gentle sucks and laps._

_Harry laughed softly, sinking his hands into Draco's hair since he liked how it looked when it was all messed up._

That had to prove something. Something about how Draco really did love his job, Harry hoped. Being forced into that would be a nightmare.

_"Harry?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_Draco took his hand and kissed his cheek, both now fully clothed and ready to head off. The gesture was sweet, and it left Harry wondering how much of it was genuine. "Until next time, then?"_

_"Yeah," Harry nodded again._

_"Good."_

_"Good."_

Harry crossed the street, finding himself closer to town than he expected. How long had he been walking for? It wasn't a huge concern, considering he could apparate back home whenever he wanted. Being a wizard really was great.

And then came the part that Harry hated.

It started as quiet, bewildered whispers. _"Could it be him? Is it really Harry Potter?"_

_"No, he's too short to be Potter!" _Gee, thanks.

"_It has to be him, look at that scar!"_

_"Then what is he wearing? Looks like he's been skinning bears this whole time."_

_"Hush! He's coming this way."_

Harry passed through the throngs of onlookers with a stony face. Only when one of them got brave enough to speak did Harry show any emotion.

"Are you returning to the Auror force, Mr. Potter?" a little girl called out, eyes wide.

With a shake of his head, Harry approached her, her brown hair taut with bobby pins and spells. "No, I'm not."

"I want to be an Auror," the girl continued in a matter-of-fact voice that reminded Harry of a young Hermione. "Then I could fight the bad guys."

Harry offered a smile. "I wish you the best of luck, then," he said. "We'll all be safer with people like you in the force...?" Harry tried to remember if she had said her name.

"Chloe," she informed him just as her mother flew to her side and clamped down on her arm. "Hey!"

"What have I told you about talking to strangers?" the mother demanded. Harry couldn't blame her; all sorts of strange people wandered the streets with malicious intentions. He knew that far too well.

Chloe shook her head defiantly. "He's not a stranger, he's Harry Potter!"

Slowly, the mother's beady eyes shifted to Harry. He tried to look as natural as possible, though that was probably working against him since he didn't know the first thing about natural.

"You," she hissed as if she knew him. "You and your faggot lifestyle stay away from my daughter."

In a heartbeat, the girl was being dragged away and disappeared into the crowd that had formed around Harry. They all stood a careful distance away from the poof who had saved them all and made the world a safer place for future generations to come.

Of all the times Harry had been called a faggot, this was different. He didn't feel that sinking and crushing blow to his lungs like someone had knocked the wind from him. This felt much different. It was a quiet acceptance, a sort of pride that escaped out of his fingertips and on. _Why, yes. Yes, I am a faggot._

He turned in a slow circle to take in the crowd. "Well?" Harry questioned, feeling his confidence return for a fleeting moment. "You've all seen a faggot before. Move along."

Half of the crowd felt sorry for Harry, and the other half was scared of what such a powerful wizard would do if they didn't obey. Harry hated both halves equally.

He was so sick of the image of 'the poor homosexual!'. Yeah, his sexuality was not a choice, and that was all fine and dandy, but something always bothered him about the way people said that. _'He has no other choice...' 'How strong he must be...'_

What a load of shit. It was like the public openly pitying people who were left-handed and couldn't help it. There was nothing so awful about being gay, in fact, Harry quite liked it. The culture, the fantastic sex, and the whole lot of things that came with it. The straight public had no idea what was going on in Harry's mind, so maybe for once they should have shut up and listen.

As for the other half, they might never listen. If they hadn't gotten the picture that Harry was not a belligerent man by now, they never would.

Determined to continue his walk, Harry Potter moved on.

XxXxX

"Okay, okay, tell me if you've heard this one before," Colin said, right on the verge of a laughing fit. "You're a real _Gail_ force wind."

Shaking her head, Gail laughed with him. "I've only heard it about a thousand times."

Lifting his camera up again, Colin shrugged. His photo studio was all set up for Gail to start her photo-shoot, with a blue chaise lounging sofa adorned with plush and sparkly pillows. They'd designed the set together, and even charmed the backdrop to look like the kind of intricate wallpaper found in a high-class boutique store. She looked ripe for the purchase and ready to pounce dressed in her favorite set of black lingerie.

"At least it's not from a client this time," Gail grinned. "The last thing I need is another forty-something making puns when I'm trying to get laid."

Just to test the light, Colin snapped the first picture. "Puns are fantastic," he argued happily.

"I'm sure Theo appreciates them," she said as she adjusted the push-up bra, trying to make herself look as voluptuous as possible. The three of them were unlikely friends, but at least her connection with Colin gave her a photographer at a discounted rate. If Draco was reaping so much money from advertising, then Gail wanted in.

Whatever client that ad had reached seemed to have endless pockets from when she last talked to her blonde coworker. Two appointments in one week, and a third scheduled for the next week? That was the stuff of dreams, and even a newcomer like Gail knew that.

"How could he _Nott_?" Colin asked, far too amused with himself.

As the second test shot went off, Gail was laughing in spite of herself. "You're awful," she decided happily. Anyway, Theo wouldn't be a Nott much longer after the two fiancées finally wed on New Year's Eve.

"Yeah, yeah. Now give me something to work with."

Immediately, Gail went into business mode. Her blown-back auburn hair had been fixed in soft curls and waves by her wand, and it stood in stark contrast to her pale, freckled skin. Shifting against the couch, she pushed her bust out and gave the camera her best sultry smile.

Colin usually knew what to say to models to get the best shot of a dress, or a product, but this was new to him. Gail's face would be cropped out of the advertisement for privacy's sake—since hardly any of this was legal to begin with, even the advertisement for a 'girlfriend experience, both men and women welcome' looked sketchy enough to investigate—but at least her body looked fantastic.

Even to a gay man, she was hot.

So, he tried at conversation. "How's life?" he asked airily, his mind still concentrated on angles, lighting, capturing her curves to best attract customers…

"Fabulous," she admitted with a tiny smile, running a hand up and down her thigh. "It's much better than the nine-to-five, anyway. I don't think I can ever go back to that."

Colin laughed, moving over for a different angle. "Funny enough, that's what I told my dad about photography. With the corruption you lot love to bring with you, I wouldn't be surprised if in five years you've somehow convinced me to become a porn-filming tycoon."

Gail laughed. "I can really only hope I get special treatment when auditioning."

"You have to _audition _for porn?"

"Large-scale companies like that," she shrugged. What kind of person would she be if she hadn't looked into every fast and sexy money option?

Colin captured another picture while her legs gently parted while reclining to leave a hint of suggestion. "I've seen some terrible porn," Colin complained, his life before Theo having been a time of many cold showers and tissues. "Are you telling me that blokes had to actually show up, were seen by another human being, and deemed acceptable for sexual viewing pleasure?"

"You strike me as the sort to watch amateur stuff," Gail told him. "They're mostly home videos."

"Look, the internet takes me where it will," Colin sighed in feigned-depression.

That laugh of Gail's returned, the one that Colin had grown so used to over their long, strange friendship. "You're a laugh. Now, should I switch positions?"

"Ah, yes," Colin said, stepping back to get a better look at the working-girl. "Well, you know best how to sell sex."

Of course she did. Gail sat up to fluff her hair, and then spread her heeled-shoes open so that she could lean her elbows onto her knees.

"There we go," he approved.

The hour faded away in a blitz of scantily-clad photos that Colin's digital camera captured with ease. He wouldn't even airbrush most of the photos, since they were so true-to-life. After all, false advertising was never good for business and sales. Gail was what the men and women saw, and she was what they got.

"Great job," Colin beamed. Not all models could sit through an hour patiently waiting for the perfect shots. "I'll pull them up on the computer and we can pick the best, then I'll add the text and address to owl. That sound good?"

Gail nodded, smiling at the sight of herself in the photos pulled upon Colin's nearby computer screen. "Sounds perfect."

Behind them, the studio door opened.

"Colin," Theo rasped, breath thin from having sprinted down the street to get to his fiancée's studio. "You have to get out here, you'll never believe who's outside."

The blonde furrowed his brow. "What are you on about?" he asked, standing.

Quickly, Theo took Colin's hand. "It's Harry Potter, and about a hundred people behind him."

"_Fuck_," Colin said, knowing what that meant. His friendship with Harry was a hard one, but ever since the war had come to a close, Colin had never seen the man take a step outside of his house. Harry was either in his bed or on his couch, and the thought of him walking around outside on his own free will and not hexing every rabid fan or hateful maniac.

Leaving Gail in her underthings looking shocked, Theo and Colin rushed from the photo room and through the office and gallery. When they hit the street, the noise was deafening.

"Harry Potter! Is it true you're coming back into the public light?"

"Have you considered reality television?"

"No, I haven't, so kindly fuck off," Harry snarked, the ocean of people behind him shocked at his foul language.

Since Theo was the tallest in his relationship, he got to do the pushing and shoving of annoying people out of their way. Barreling through a crowd of reporters waving their Quick-Quote Quills, he was creating a spectacle all his own.

"Look! It's the son of Death Eater Nott!"

Theo and his muggleborn fiancée really didn't have time for this shit. As much as Theo would accomplish as a Potioneer on his own, the knowledge of living in his bigot father's shadow only served to frustrate him.

Nearly knocking a half-rate photographer in the jaw, Theo finally got to Harry at the front of the veritable street mob with Colin close behind.

"Potter!" Theo yelled above the din. "You need to get away from these people. They seem harmless, but I've seen crowds go wild, okay?"

"You can come with us," Colin offered to the shocked-looking man.

Harry immediately recognized the two from school and the dreams that haunted him at night. They had been in one with him recently, hadn't they…?

His blank stare had Colin's stomach in knots. The Gryffindor always felt that he could never properly assist his friend or even take away some of the pain for a little while. Now, there was something definite and very possible he could do to help. "Harry, come with us."

Harry's eyes flicked up to them finally as he focused in. "Where?"

"Away from here, dumbarse," Theo offered, getting an elbow in the rib from Colin for his brutally honest nature. For once, Colin felt they had to soften Harry's fall.

Reporters and citizens alike still clamored with questions, all of them mad with excitement for being the first of the world to see Harry Potter emerge from his cave of solitude after years and years. "Yeah," Harry said numbly, unable to hear himself over the roar of voices. "Yeah."

Colin latched onto his arm and marched back to the photo studio with Theo blazing the trail once more. Colin had defended Harry in war and he would be damned if he didn't do it in the streets.

When they were safely in Colin's gallery entrance way, Theo activated their locking charm to keep the wild masses at bay. "He's not taking questions!" he yelled before slamming the windows shut, too. "Shit, Potter, what were you thinking?"

"I wanted to go on a walk," Harry said quietly, taking a seat on the lounge chaise that Gail had abandoned at the first mention of someone even casually associated with Aurors.

"It's not his fault," Colin sighed, resting a hand on his fiancées shoulder to quiet him. Finally, he turned back to Harry. "Harry, oh boy, am I glad to see you."

Harry frowned. "You are?"

"Duh," Colin said, surprised that Harry hadn't believed him the first time.

It really was a wonder in Harry's eyes how Colin didn't blame Harry for his comatose state. Colin had been rushed to St. Mungo's after receiving a near-fatal spell to the chest from one of his boyfriend's father's friends. Maybe even his father himself, who knew? It would sure as hell be ironic. But it was Harry's fault that Colin was even there…

"Don't you dare," Colin stopped Harry's next objection before it left his mouth. "It was never your fault."

Letting the Gryffindors babble in their own incoherent language, Theo went to make sure that every door in the studio was securely locked.

"Fine, whatever," Harry sighed, having been bombarded by that message so intensely that week that he crumbled into submission before it. "Look, thanks for getting me out of there and all, but I could handle it myself."

"And what? Lead them back to Grimmauld so that they'd be outside your door every waking hour?" Colin asked.

"No," Harry muttered miserably. At least he hoped that wasn't his plan. All Harry had wanted was a walk, something to clear his head. Wasn't he allowed to do that without being mobbed by wizards and witches? That had been why he kept walking even when they gathered behind him, hoping they would just give up eventually. Harry greatly underestimated their stamina and curiosity.

Theodore finally rejoined the conversation after completing his security mission. "So, you staying for dinner?" he casually asked the man who had saved all of their skins when they were only teenagers.

"You want me to?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Sure," Theo shrugged. "We have dinner guests all the time, so don't look so bloody shocked. You're welcome here any time." It surprised him how genuine that sentence came out.

Colin was practically beaming, and Harry saw the way he was looking at Theo. The little photographer Harry had seen in second year was love-struck. "Alright," Harry nodded. "Um, thanks."

With a mysterious smile that reminded Harry of Draco, Theo murmured: "No need to thank me at all."

XxXxX

Ron Weasley looked down at the files spread across his Auror office with his wife on one side and his Auror partner on the other.

Blaise Zabini had been assigned to Ron when Harry had fled the Academy in shame, and it had taken Ron at least a few years to get used to the Slytherin. He was rude, sarcastic, and often underhanded. The only thing keeping Ron from firing his arse was his exceptional defense skills and the minor detail that he had once saved Ron's life in an investigation. Once.

"Last seen at her apartment by a 'Molly Weasley'," Blaise murmured as he scooped up a file in his hand. "So, what were Ginny and mummy talking about?"

Gritting his teeth and putting his anger for Blaise on a shelf, Ron stood to face him. "They were talking about plans for Christmas. Every year we go to The Burrow and have Christmas dinner together with the kids and the whole family."

"Did she seem upset?" Hermione asked, trying to remain calm and rational.

"Mum says she didn't," Ron sighed. "Gin said she was looking forward to it this year, and that she had gotten most of her shopping done. It was just a regular day."

Blaise slapped down the file in disgust. "So we have absolutely nothing?"

Hermione shook her head. "That's hardly true. Ron, tell him what you found at her flat."

"It was an address," Ron sighed. "An address of someone we've wanted to catch for a very, very long time."

"A neo-Death Eater?" Blaise asked out of impulse. There were plenty of those lurking around the bowels of Knockturn Alley and retreating to their Wiltshire mansions.

Ron shook his head. This—_this_ was the bit he couldn't believe. "Do you remember when we took down that brothel last year?"

"How could I forget?" Blaise tried desperately at humor. He had to look calm, he couldn't be obvious, Draco was safe because of him. "Lots of beautiful women." And some blokes. One of them being a childhood friend who he had escorted from the scene without pressing charges.

"Do you remember who we thought was behind it?"

Blaise actually had an issue remembering that. "Wait, is the address of the old brothel the one that your sister had? Damn, mate. That's rough."

"No," Ron snapped. "It was the address of the, er, _woman_ behind it."

Hermione knew the case and was very, very close to giving her husband a good smack. "Yes, Ron. She was a woman. Blaise, he's talking about Madam Natasha Aspasia."

"We never could find anything convicting Mrs. Aspasia," Blaise recalled with a smile. He had made sure of that, obviously. "But how do you know her and your sister weren't just pals?"

"Because my sister doesn't acquaint herself with _prostitutes_," Ron snapped, growing more annoyed with his partner by the second. Usually he was spot on when they were analyzing cases, why was he being such an arse?

"Fine," Blaise gave in. "So are we going to give the Madam a visit?"

Ron shook his head. "She's too smart to give anything away when she's talking. We're staking it out. Everywhere she goes, we go. Got that?"

Draco would have to hear about this, but something was nagging Blaise about Ginny's disappearance. If she really was in danger, then Draco could be too. He always touted how safe and secure his job was, especially with an Auror on his side, but Blaise had always been wary. "Got it," he murmured.

"I'll take the first shift," Ron said in his stubborn nature. His black cloak trailed behind him as he left the office without another word or so much as a kiss on the cheek for Hermione.

She sighed, knowing what a protective brother he was. "They kidnapped her," Hermione decided, going with her gut instinct. "There's no other explanation. Why else would someone with a good life start hanging around with bad people? Maybe she thought she was helping them… But look how they repaid her."

"You're ahead of the evidence," Blaise muttered to Hermione's surprise. "All we have is an address, Granger. No need to go on a crusade to wipe the World's Oldest Profession off of the earth."

"Human trafficking is a huge issue," she countered. "Women are forced to be slaves with the threat of death if they try and run. It's a human rights violation, and I won't let it happen to my sister-in-law. I'm a Weasley now, you know."

Oh, Blaise knew. But once a Granger always a Granger, and Blaise had zero to no interest in picking a fight with her over politics. "Whatever."

Hermione crossed her arms. "You don't care," she said, astonished. "You're an Auror, a protector of the people, and you don't _care_."

"My job is to enforce the law," he said coldly. "That's what I'm doing. When I find that someone broke a law, I will arrest them. If I find evidence, I'll bring it to the department. I know the Ministry makes you feel all high and mighty for your civil rights cases, but this isn't one of them. It's our case, and you can keep your beliefs out of it."

She held her head up high, scowling at the man before her. Her husband deserved more than this as a partner. "It's my sister," Hermione returned and dropped the 'in-law' line. "So you better get to arresting."


	6. Chapter 6: Be Our Guest

AN: Thanks so much for the feedback! One reader actually predicted what would happen in this chapter very well, so kudos to them! I absolutely have loved googling names to find their meaning and other famous people who've shared them, which is how I pick my OC names. It makes me feel like a regular JK Rowling!

**Chapter 6: Be Our Guest**

Blaise's shift outside of the beautiful city-side home of Natasha and Horatio Aspasia had drawn to a close. Natasha had apparated in by evidence of her movement in the curtained windows, and her muggle-born husband maintained his identity at a muggle advertising firm by travelling in a corporate-black car.

Horatio had entered the residence, greeted his wife with a kiss, and disappeared into a room where the windows couldn't find him. If Blaise were actually pursuing the case, he would have tried to make the walls translucent or at least a shade lighter.

"See anything to give us probable cause?" Ron asked, crouching next to Blaise in the nearby shrubbery. All he needed was a warrant, and he was sure he had the Madam.

Blaise shook his head. "Just a happily married couple," he reported. At some point he thought he heard singing, but maybe staring at a window for hours had him going crazy.

"Damn," Ron muttered. "I've got the next five hours, okay?"

"Sucks for you," Blaise grinned, and apparating without another word. He was good at lying to his partner, but like Pansy, he was an incorrigible gossip. He had to get out of there before he said something stupid and incriminating.

Blaise's sudden disappearance had Ron more frustrated than ever. Something was up with Zabini, he just knew it. Ron's life felt upside down. His partner was doing _something _shifty, Harry was barely speaking to him, Ginny was missing, and Ron had hours of work ahead of him.

Within the house, however, there was a couple that could have been the picture of calm and orderly.

"How was work?" Natasha asked pleasantly, dipping the tortillas in the simmering pot of Chile sauce. Natasha always made a point of whipping out her best enchiladas when guests were expected.

"Jake was being a prick again, but I think the latest design went over well with the clients. Apparently, you _can_ market Shark Week on the side of city buses. Or, at least they think so," he smirked. "How are things at the clinic?"

Natasha continued her cooking with a smile. "Same old, same old. And the business is going well, too."

Ah, yes. The business they reported incorrectly on their tax reports every time that season came around. "The girls and boys behaving well?" Horatio asked, referring to a dramatic falling out he'd witnessed a few weeks ago between two women over a mutual client.

"Don't worry, they worked it out," she assured him. Her girls never fought for long; they were thick as thieves.

Horatio began rolling the enchiladas that his wife had finished on a baking pan in front of their pearly white sink, careful to avoid the window that lit the room.

Even though he had met his gorgeous wife while working as a hotel clerk for the men she serviced, Horatio was wary of the Auror they had spotted outside of their house a few hours ago. No stranger to danger, he stayed wary for the rest of the preparation of dinner.

When Natasha noticed her husband had fallen silent, she rested her chin on his shoulder. "Tell me what's on your mind."

There it was. That soft, silky and comforting voice that made his knees go weak. "I'm just… concerned, is all," he sighed.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said, shifting to wrap her arms around him. He'd finally taken off that stuffy muggle coat so that she could get at his thin button-down shirt. "Don't you worry about a thing. I've dealt with men like Ronald Weasley before."

"They were never in our bushes," Horatio pointed out as he leaned back into her.

"Bah, when have I ever been upset about men in my bushes?" Natasha teased, returning to her Chile sauce to pour them over her spicy creations. "Can you be a love and get the cheese from the refrigerator?"

Obediently, Horatio padded across the tile floor only to open the fridge wandlessly. Their house looked rather mundane for a couple that used to run among drug dealers, social revolutionaries, and hypersexual people of every gender that refused to be silent in the face of the law.

"Thank you," she said when she gracefully received her shredded cheese, spreading it over the top of the enchiladas.

With a quiet devotion, Horatio set the table with an extra plate, napkin, and utensils. Natasha had even broken out the nice china for their newcomer. "Should I go outside to collect him?"

"Sure," Natasha nodded. Finally, the enchiladas were ready for the oven that had been warming up from the moment she had come home.

With a nod, the copper-skinned man made his way to the foyer and out of the maw of the eerily-suburban home (complete with a white picket fence and a gravel driveway) to fetch the chief officer of the law out of his hiding place in the lawn.

The second Ron saw the man approach, he whipped out his wand. This was quite possibly the pimp that had his sister trapped somewhere! He had to be brave, remember what they taught him in the academy, and always stay vigilant.

"Stop right there!" Ron said, bounding out of the greenery with his wand drawn.

"Head Auror Weasley," Horatio replied calmly, adding a surprised tone to his voice. "What brings you to this part of town?"

The innocent act wasn't throwing Ron off of his game one bit. "I think you know what brings me here. Odd, though. I've never seen a Mum and Pop hooking arrangement."

"And I've never seen a stranger prowling around my yard. I suppose you're doing a good job with the crime around here, then," Horatio said with an enigmatic smirk.

"I'll send your response to the Ministry," Ron snarked, guards up all around him.

"Good," he nodded. "Now, would you like to join us for dinner?"

That was the only thing Ron was expecting him _not _to say. "What?"

"Dinner," Horatio repeated. "We're having Mexican food tonight, and there's enough to share. Anything for our stalwart Auror force."

The opportunity to see incriminating evidence within their home was almost too much for Ron. He could excuse himself to the restroom and go anywhere he wanted. Ron had to take the chance. "Well, it's not every day I meet someone who wants to feed me rather than run from me." Involuntarily, his stomach rumbled. Ron had never been so glad for his overactive appetite.

"Wonderful. Follow me."

And with that, Head Auror Weasley entered what he believed to be a den of sin, corruption, and of a disreputable nature.

Needless to say he was shocked when Horatio led him in to an average-looking foyer that wasn't covered in shag carpet, stripper poles, and glitter. "You've got quite the home," Ron remarked.

"Thank you," Horatio said kindly. It was only a couple hours at worst of dinner and conversation, or so he kept telling himself. "Nat, is dinner ready yet?"

"Just about," she answered in her best house-wife voice. While her husband was outside she had changed into a more modest frock, a flowery piece with a pearl necklace to top it all off. The picture of femininity that men so often confused with innocence was dripping from her every move.

She pulled the enchiladas out of the oven with her oven mitts rather than magick it out. When Ron came upon her for the first time in months (when they had been so,_ so_ close to catching her at her work), his expression hardened. "Hello, Madam," he said frankly.

"Please," Natasha said as casually as she would have responded to 'Mrs. Aspasia'. "Call me Natasha. Everyone does."

"Ah," Ron nodded. "I see."

As opposed to her smoky-eyed nighttime makeup, Natasha's tawny skin was only adorned with a simple blush and a pink gloss over her lips. "Have a seat. I'm sure you're famished from a day of hard work."

Ron pulled out a chair out from the quaint kitchen nook and sat down, his eyes darting around the room. If anything, it was clean. Sunny accents, no sign of drugs or illicit activities, and family photos on the refrigerator along with an assortment of magnets from their travels. Bermuda, Venice, Morocco…

Why they had invited him in was clear. The place had nothing to offer in terms of evidence, and they knew it. "So, it looks as if your home is much better organized than your place of work."

"I know," Horatio cut in as a joke. "I'm a bit of a slob."

"I wasn't talking about _your_ place of work," Ron sighed, feeling his tension mount with each moment that was wasted in the home.

"Oh, are you referring to the clinic?" Natasha chirped. "It's only messy on busy days. Weekends, mostly. That's when the young people are free from school and stock up on birth control. We have a featured health pamphlet every Saturday, too."

Ron made a face. "How scholarly." Okay, maybe he had picked that word up from Hermione, but still. It was a decent quip, he thought.

"Anything to educate the masses. You have a daughter, correct?" she asked calmly.

"What?" Ron snapped at the mention of his precious Rose. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"She'll be a young woman someday, one that needs education on sexual matters. Too many lives have been lost or tainted with disease."

This was insane. It had Ron flustered and feeling rather unprofessionally angry. "We're not here to discuss my family," he growled, further surprised by the married couple sitting down across the table from Ron and putting napkins on their laps like they were in some fancy restaurant.

"Ah, you're right. We're here for dinner, not to talk labias and Vas deferens," Natasha said in a voice that reminded Ron of an actress he once saw in a play about bathtubs and street cars. At least that was what he had picked up from the performance. "Tell us, what's on your mind?" She left out the part where something incredibly heavy had to be on his mind for him to camp outside their house with his Auror partner. An Auror partner she had seen hanging around with Draco Malfoy, but nonetheless, an Auror.

"Prostitution," Ron said honestly, fed up with the talking in circles.

Natasha gave him an understanding look. "We get a lot of working men and women down at the clinic. Are you interested in talking about the decriminalization of the act of prostitution so that these fine young people can have health insurance plans included with their jobs? It is a high-risk health job, much like construction work or landscaping."

He almost couldn't believe his ears. "Selling bodies is different from making them shear grass. The main point being that one of those things is illegal."

"Then why aren't you going after the abusive pimps?" Horatio asked as he piled a few enchiladas onto Ron's plate. "They're the ones committing some truly heinous crimes."

"Actually," Ron said as he narrowed his eyes. "I'm rather close to catching someone who's had a long run in the business."

"Who?" Natasha asked, ever curious and chipper.

"You."

As if they were sharing an inside joke, Natasha and Horatio laughed to themselves. Horatio even felt inclined to rest an arm around his wife's chair. Maybe he was being protective, but Weasley had said that they were close to catching someone. Namely the love of his life and the keeper of his collection of key rings. What? Everyone's got a hobby.

"You think breaking the law is a joke?" Ron asked. That sacred text of the Ministry had been tempered into his soul through Auror training, and the thought of Ginny was ever-present.

"Oh, hardly," Natasha gushed. "I'm just interested in what led you to believe that my work in sex education has somehow poured over into prostitution?"

Ron leaned in, resting his elbows on the table. "Listen to me," he growled. "I know you're turning out girls for tricks, and I've let you roam the streets for far too long. But now, it's personal. Where the hell is my sister?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk about your family," Horatio remembered, almost unable to stop himself from agitating any assertion of authority from an outside source. He'd been in enough bar raids to know exactly how to get under the skin of a man of the law.

"Ginny Weasley," Ron repeated, furious. "Where is she?"

Silently, Natasha ate her dinner. Her husband followed suit once he picked up on their method of response.

"Where the fuck is my sister?!" Ron stood up so fast it knocked his chair over. "Answer me!"

With glazed-over eyes, the couple continued their mute protest.

"That's it," he roared. Almost tripping over the chair he had knocked over and unfortunately ruining any effect of dramatics that his rampage might have stirred up. He moved to search deeper, delve into the house of the people he believed to have either tricked his sister, or taken her, or were forcing her to pay off a debt—

"Head Auror Weasley." Horatio's arm stopped him like the man was built of brick. "I think it's about time you left, hm? I'll box up your dinner for you."

Natasha continued her silence but Ron could just tell she was celebrating. There was no evidence, and Ron had no warrant. His cover had been blown, and his investigation soiled.

"I'll get you," Ron swore to her. "I really will, and I'll find Ginny and bring her back home."

"Maybe she doesn't want to go home," Natasha hissed. Her fiery temper got through on that one, she had to admit.

Without thinking, Ron was in a charge forward when the doorbell rang. Even Natasha looked surprised at that, which stopped Ron just short of hexing her so hard that her dentist would feel it. "Who is that?" he asked, realizing it could be anyone from a customer to his sister.

He didn't even wait for the answer. Instead, he answered the door himself before the curiously-strong Horatio could hold him back. Ron swung the door open while the couple followed in a frenzy of objections and threats of suing if he didn't leave the property immediately.

"Weasley," Draco said plainly. After all, he was fucking Harry Potter, so not much surprised him anymore. His pockets were heavy with the almost-Auror's gold for Natasha's cut of the profits. "I never got to offer my condolences on your marriage to Granger." Okay, he had been planning that quip for a while, and Draco would never forgive himself if he didn't get to use it.

"_Malfoy_? What the hell—?"

"Mr. Weasley was just leaving," Natasha said as she strong-armed the man out of the house. She cared for Draco, but that didn't stop her for being infuriated at his sudden entrance into her plans that had gone so obviously awry.

All she had wanted was to smooth things out between the Aurors and her businesspeople without causing an uproar. She had underestimated his passion and instinct to protect his family.

"What are you doing here?" Ron pressed on in spite of the fact that he'd been forced onto the sidewalk. Malfoy had grown taller, but he was just as unpleasant.

Draco shrugged. "Visiting with friends. How's your partner doing?"

Ron didn't even dignify that with a response. "Where the hell is my sister?" he demanded.

"Oh," Draco said quietly. "Is that what this is about?"

"What else would it be about?" Horatio muttered tensely, trying to keep whatever thin veil of mystery their institution had.

"I'm bringing down your whorehouses no matter what," Ron seethed. He had had it with these people.

Quickly, Draco acted. "Would you like to hear from your sister?" he asked, digging in his tight pocket for his muggle cellphone.

Ron pulled his wand out almost unnecessarily and pointed it right at Draco's Adam's apple. "_Where is she_?"

Not missing a beat, Draco held down the number nine for his speed dial. The contact's image came up on the screen as Ginny and Draco seated in a coffee shop downtown making strange faces at each other, and Ron's stomach nearly exited through his mouth. He didn't recognize the number on the screen, so why did Draco have it?

Draco clicked the device onto speakerphone and let the first ring break the silence that had set over the small crowd.

"Draco," Natasha warned.

"You two worry too much," he decided.

The phone rang again, and Draco really, really hoped more than ever that Gail would pick up her damned phone. She was always hanging up at strange times or letting the damn thing go to voicemail.

"Draco, I have a client in fifteen minutes, what do you want?" the voice of Ginny Weasley asked in spite of the fact that she bore a new name.

Ron's eyes were the size of dinner plates.

"I want to talk to you about our latest pitch," Draco said without stressing any of the words to avoid suspicion. "Did the last meeting with Amnesty International's magazine ad campaign go well?"

Ginny immediately picked up on the façade. "Yeah, they loved it so we sealed the deal. Horatio's going to throw me a bloody party."

"Yes, yes I am," Horatio said loudly.

"Am I on speaker?"

"Yes, Ginny," Draco answered. "Natasha, Horatio, and I have someone who wants to speak to you."

Ron grabbed the phone right out of Draco's hand. "Ginny? Are you okay?"

"_Ron_?" she demanded. Oh, Gail/Ginny/whatever she felt like calling herself was going to absolutely murder Draco after this. "What in the devil is wrong with you? I'm fine!"

Suddenly, Ron's face went as red as his hair. The whole thing had been… A misunderstanding? No, there was still prostitution going on here, he knew it. "You… You didn't answer your phone, and you weren't at home—"

"And is that a crime?" Ginny asked furiously.

Natasha breathed a sigh of relief. Draco had never failed her and it looked as if he never would. That was a stroke of genius, and it was manipulative enough to get Ron to step off. With four people convincing Ron that he was absolutely mental for pursuing this, and with Blaise's apathy… It almost freed them. Almost.

"Why are you hanging out with prostitutes?" Ron asked his sister.

There was a long silence on the end of the line. "Look, I've been using my work phone a lot because the press found my personal phone. I'm not at home because I'm working. Calm down," she avoided.

"Calm down? Ginny, you were missing for four days! No contact, not a single owl, mum was worried sick!"

"I've got to go," Ginny said quickly with what sounded like a key turning in the door of a hotel room. "I'll talk to mum later, okay? Bye."

With a click, the line went dead and Ron was left with more questions than he had started out with.

He slowly lowered the phone from his ear and let it fall to the ground. Draco was about to give him a harangue on how it was rude to damage other people's property when Ron spoke again.

"None of you work for an advertising agency," he said shakily. "Not even my sister does." The Imperius curse was always an option… It'd lock these bastards away for good, too.

Horatio frowned, being the only one there that actually did. Either way, Draco spoke before he could get a chance. "I definitely do, Weasel. I'm a regular Brian Kinney," he said, remembering the forged papers he kept in his drawers at home that made him look like a functioning member of society.

"Who?" Ron asked, momentarily distracted from announcing his breakdown on the trafficking problem in his city.

Draco sighed; of course Weasley wouldn't know. Queer as Folk wasn't really a show for the straight alpha-male that Ronald had become. "Ask Harry," he sneered.

"_What_?"

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Draco's habit of unending honesty really wouldn't help him with the law. "Whatever, Weasley." Draco tried to make it sound as non-committal as possible but came up short.

Draco had said too much. "Leave," Natasha said to the Auror while hauling Draco into the entrance hall. They may have avoided arrests, but they were in no way out of the woods. Horatio would be up all night bothering her about it.

The door slammed shut in Ron's face, but he knew exactly who he would be talking to next.

XxXxX

Draco chuckled to himself, not whipping out a cleaning charm just yet. Before him was the owner of the Australian National Quidditch team in a rather compromising position.

Bound, gagged, and with Draco' seed dripping down his back, to be specific.

"I'm beginning to wonder if I should even bother untying you when you look so good like this," Draco said wistfully, undoing the ropes holding the man to the bedposts. The event with Natasha and Gail had drained him that afternoon, but he still had a job to do. He was saving up for one of those muggle hot tubs he fancied so much to go on the roof of his apartment complex.

A muffled groan came from Philip Hanks, the billionaire with a passion for sports and being flogged. Sure, he wasn't the best-looking man Draco had slept with, but he was a kind-hearted man who carried around a burden of guilt. Most of that guilt was due to his homosexuality and the fact that he married a woman, but Draco had never advised anyone to divorce their bloody wives for him.

Finally, he undid the silk tie that he had wrapped around his mouth to keep Philip incoherent and pleading. "There we go."

"That was great," the man said sheepishly, a rush of warmth filling his flat face. Before Draco could so much as give him an appreciative kiss on the ear, Philip was up and moving again.

Exhausted, Draco decided that lounging on the bed was a superb contrast to his usual pleas for his client to stay the night. He didn't like sleeping alone, but he was on the verge of hibernation. Something inside him made him fear for liking people too much; for needing them too much.

Still, there was a certain amount of a fantasy act he had to keep up for men to always be interested. "You're leaving?" he asked quietly, putting as much of a fake pitiful whimper into it as he could.

"My mother-in-law is floo-ing over tonight," Philip muttered. "The harpy herself."

"All the more reason to stay."

"Barbara needs me there tonight, the old bat isn't even kind to her daughter," he sighed.

Draco frowned. It must've been so hard for him, keeping up a persona every hour of the day that came so close to breaking around Christmastime every year the old woman visited. Draco silently applauded her on her keen gaydar.

He continued to watch him in silence as he put his pants, trousers, shirt, and shoes back on. When it came to his saliva-soaked tie, he abashedly shoved it into his pocket. "Have a happy Christmas," Phil told Draco.

"I won't see you again until after Christmas?" Damn, he really wanted that hot tub before January snow hit.

Phil shook his head. "Kids are back from Hogwarts, so there's no time."

"Then you have a happy Christmas as well," Draco said with an airy smile, his mussed hair catching Phil's attention for a moment.

In a moment that was so very close to being tender, Phil walked over to the side of the bed where the Adonis figure of a man was all easy smiles and soft skin. He carefully pinned a blonde wisp of hair behind Draco's ear and came in for a clumsy kiss on the forehead.

"You're a sweetheart," Draco said quietly, tangling his thin fingers in the man's balding hair.

"I really wish I could spend the holiday with you, you know," he murmured.

Philip Hanks was the sort of man who fell for every sweet line Draco gave him. He was the client who liked to think he was the only client, and the kind who bought gifts for Draco like he was his ickle boyfriend.

"Here," Philip offered, holding out a black box with a golden ribbon wrapped around it.

Never one to turn down gifts, Draco hurriedly undid the ribbon and tossed the lid to the other side of the room with an eagerness that made Phil smile.

When he uncovered the treasure within, it took every fiber of will in Draco's body not to look horrified. "What is this?" he asked, voice cold.

"I just thought you'd like to wear it." Philip broke into a cold sweat when he saw the way Draco's grey eyes turned iron when they happened upon the diamond ring. "You know, that's your—"

"I know. That's my family's crest," Draco muttered before pinning on the biggest fake smile on his face that he could. "Thank you, it's lovely." Lovely enough to pawn off the second the poor sap left the room, sure.

"Happy Christmas… Love," Phil said carefully before fleeing from the hotel room.

Dumbstruck, Draco looked down at the ring again. "_Love_?" No, no, that wouldn't do. In his mind, he crossed off the fifth client that he had that week from ever having an appointment again. The list was dwindling and it scared Draco more than he could say. Ten men left.

Ross was off the list because he'd missed his daughter's first piano concert to fuck around with Draco for a couple hours. Draco had hope in people, but that was an offence of the highest order.

Oliver was off the list because of his foot fetish. Okay, maybe that was a terribly shallow reason, but Draco had promised himself not to sleep with anyone he no longer fancied that much and that now included their practices in bed. Oliver was a great bloke, but laying there for an hour while his sandpaper-y tongue licked his toes was a bit much.

Jim was off the list because his wife had started asking questions, and he had practically told Draco that their meetings had come to an end anyway.

Matthew was off the list since Draco felt like it, that was why. Draco was in control of his body and of his career, and what he said went.

That left him with ten men. More than enough to get by on, and those were his favorites. Well, except David. And Ben. And Julius had too much back hair…

Draco stopped himself right there. What the hell was he doing? Had Weasley really scared him that badly at Natasha's house that Draco was thinking of quitting everything he'd taken years to build?

"I'm not," Draco said out loud as confirmation. These men were his livelihood, and he cared for them all.

"I'm just fine," he muttered, collecting the sack of gold that Phil had left on the bureau. The man never had liked to hand the money over to Draco, as if he was trying to convince himself that it wasn't a business deal and they weren't two parties mutually benefiting from sexual relations.

Not wanting to get changed, Draco apparated back to his apartment to open the little black book he kept stashed under his bed to cross Philip's name off.

"I'm not quitting. I'm just fine."


	7. Chapter 7: Happy

AN: This one is for Kathleen and K, because they are sitting in my living room as I type this. True friendship. Some D/s in this chapter, too. Also, the reason I've been slow about updates is that it's midterms week for me and I am slowly drowning under textbooks. Thanks for reading!

**Chapter 7:**

Treacle tarts were a peace offering that Ron had almost complete certainty would work. He picked them up from the bakery that Harry liked best—mostly because they delivered and didn't ask too many questions.

That was how blokes made up, wasn't it? With food and no discussing each other's psychological issues, and certainly no concerned faces.

Ron rasped on the door to Grimmauld Place and hoped to Merlin that his black Auror robes wouldn't scare Harry off. This was his lunch break and he really didn't feel like changing.

A sleepy green eye appeared in the peep-hole before Ron heard all of the bolts and locks come undone inside the door. "Ron?" Harry asked a little distantly. A thick blanket was draped around his shoulders, but he had at least bothered to put on something other than pyjamas. He had on a soft pair of muggle jeans and a Chudley Cannons t-shirt.

"Hey," Ron mumbled. "Can I come in?"

Harry nodded and opened the door wider for Ron and the food in his hand to make an entrance. "Yeah."

The door closed behind Ron and the light from the sun outside seemed to go dim in the dank halls of Grimmauld Place. "So," he mumbled as he milled about before Harry guided him to the kitchen. "I brought you treacle tarts."

"Apology accepted," Harry snarked with a grin, taking the food from him in a rare burst of confidence and that wry sense of humor that he'd almost thought he had lost.

Ron smiled. "Thanks, mate."

Harry opened up the pastry box and grabbed them some plates and forks. He'd almost accidentally grabbed Remus' old fork, the only one in Grimmauld Place that wasn't made out of silver. It made his head throb to think of how Remus had used his wand to engrave 'Moony' on the bottom of it with paw-prints all around it. The overwhelming sense of violation into Sirius' life was present as always.

While Harry rummaged through drawers and lost Marauders, Ron pulled out a chair out and sat down. "So," he cleared his throat. "How have you been?"

'_Absolutely out of my mind. One minute I'm considering taking a long walk off a short pier, and the next I never want to lay down ever again in my life and just keep going until I reach the English Channel. Maybe then I'll swim to Europe. Wouldn't that be something, Ron? I'd probably freeze and drown in the middle of winter, but that would sort of accomplish both of my goals'_. "Fine," Harry said instead.

"That's good," Ron tried.

"Yeah."

After staring at his shoes for a quiet minute while Harry took his seat, Ron began to feel bad that he'd even come to visit. What sort of friend was he if he only cared about Harry's wellbeing when he needed information from him?

At least that was what Harry would probably think. It made Ron sad to acknowledge the rift between them; there had never been one there before. Well, that wasn't entirely true. It had existed in fourth year during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, fifth year when he and Hermione were prefects, sixth year when Harry was lurking around the castle in sheer defensive maneuvers, and seventh year when Ron had stormed out of the tent. Looking back, that was pretty stupid of him.

But when Ron looked back on their sixth year, he didn't blame himself as much. Harry's eyes had been glued to the map, and he'd been following Malfoy. Had something gone on that Ron didn't even know about? Harry had never been too open about his love life with Ron, but he surely would have told him that, right?

"Ron," Harry said carefully. "Spit it out." He'd spent a little too long watching his best mate bore holes into the floor with his eyes.

"Do you know who 'Brian Kinney' is?" Ron asked, hoping to start small with this one.

"I know of a fictional character named that," he answered skeptically.

"What's the fictional character like?"

It was a strange question, but once Harry got talking about his favorite characters it was difficult for him to stop. "Well, he's a gay man living in America. He works at an advertising company and he has this great flat and a group of close friends that he sort of continually makes fun of while looking out for them. The whole point of the show, Queer as Folk, is a character study of him. Brian sleeps with as many men as he can, preferring anonymous sex to relationships, when suddenly everything shifts when he meets this kid. Okay, he's not really a kid, but he's seventeen. His name's Justin, and they sleep together one night and Justin just keeps coming back for more."

"Brian's the only man who's ever honest with him. When they eventually are in a relationship, it's an open relationship because Justin and Brian both really love sleeping around, but they also sort of love each other. The whole show progresses with them and their friends and towards the end, Brian and Justin finally become exclusive and decide to get married. The strange part is the ending," he continued.

"Ever since the beginning of their relationship, Brian and Justin always wanted it to be mutually beneficial for the both of them, and when they get their dream jobs on different sides of America… They end it. They love each other and it hurts, but they end it. The song they danced to at Justin's prom is sort of always there though, it's called 'Save the Last Dance for Me', and I think it was a really realistic relationship. Neither of them was horribly effeminate like every other queer on television, and they were believable. Merlin, that's such a great show."

A little stunned by how Harry's one-word responses turned into full-on character analysis of someone who wasn't even real, Ron nodded slowly. "So, a lot of gay people watch the show?"

"Yeah, why?" Harry asked.

"Nothing. It's just something someone said."

It was never 'nothing' with Ron, so Harry pursued. "Who said what?"

"Listen," Ron said as he shifted in his chair nervously. "I can't technically give you details, but I'm working on something big."

"Bugger technicalities. Who the hell have I got to blab to?"

The fact that the answer was 'nobody' made Ron feel even worse. "I found Ginny."

"And was she kidnapped?"

"No, now quit giving me that I-told-you-so look," he huffed.

"I'm not _saying_ I told you so," Harry pointed out. "But…"

"That's not the point," Ron insisted rather than be out-performed on deduction by someone who hadn't even completed the course in the academy. "I've uncovered something bigger than that, and I think she may still be involved."

Harry raised an eyebrow. Leave it to him to think that all the conspiracies and crimes in the world were an arm's-length away. "What is it? And what does it have to do with Brian Kinney?"

"It was just something Malfoy said."

"_What?_"

Ron ruffled his hair while he thought; making sure Harry's surprise flew right over his head. "I think there's a prostitution ring going on, and Ginny and Malfoy are somehow both involved. Not one of those street-corner operations, but the kind that politicians use. An escort service."

Pounding in his chest laid Harry's heart, pumping blood so fast he could have sworn he was close to passing out. "You're joking," he decided, mouth dry. He'd have to tell Draco and Ginny too, and make sure that they were safe.

"I'm not. I went to the house of a suspected Madam—who by the way has a bloody husband, who knew—and when I started asking questions about Ginny they clammed up. That was before Draco fucking Malfoy rang the doorbell like they were all such wonderful friends," Ron explained. "He got Ginny on the phone, and she sounded distracted. I think she may be under the Imperius curse. Maybe Malfoy even is, too."

"What makes you think that?" Harry asked now that he was more worried than ever.

Ron gave him a look. "I mean, come on. It's Malfoy. We know he's gay and that mummy and daddy cut off their gold flow from him, but do you think he'd ever stoop so low for money?"

"It's not stooping low," he argued before he could stop himself.

"What the hell is with everyone thinking that?" Ron asked, eyes bugging out a little. This had to be some weird conspiracy. "I don't know about you, but my mum taught me that if you have a lot of sex, you've got insecurity issues. Especially when you take money for it."

"You're right; you don't know about me."

"Look," he argued. "I'm not judging you or whatever for sleeping with a lot of blokes—"

"I've only slept with four!" Harry cut him off. "That is_ not_ a lot." A hundred was a lot, and Draco didn't seem any more 'insecure' for it.

"Fine," Ron backed off. "What I'm saying is that sleeping with people is all fine and legal, but prostitution is not. That's what I think is going on here, anyway. Plus, if you'd have seen the way Malfoy was dressed—"

Oh, that one really got under his skin. "What does this have to do with me? Or my television shows?"

"They're under the disguise of an advertising firm," he explained. "When I accused them of it being a front, Malfoy looked me dead in the eyes and told me he was a 'regular Brian Kinney'. When I asked who in the hell that was... He said to ask you."

Harry's blood ran cold. "Oh."

"I mean, now I know it's just because you're gay and he was taking a cheap shot at me, but yeah," Ron tried.

"So that's why you came here? To _interrogate_ me?"

"What—? No. Harry—"

"I think you should leave," Harry muttered as he retreated back so far into his shell that he wasn't sure there was much of an outside world anymore.

"I'm not accusing you of anything," Ron sighed miserably. Why did Harry have to jump to conclusions so fast, and why did he have to be so quick to shove a problem under the carpet and forget it? Harry hadn't done that with the war. "I'm just saying that more people know you're gay than there are people who know you killed Tom Riddle, okay? It's pretty common knowledge, and that must have been why Malfoy brought it up. Right?"

Gritting his teeth, Harry nodded.

"Right," Ron repeated. "I just wanted to know. You were my only lead."

That was at least a relief for Harry. "Well, I suppose I'm a dead end. Why don't you get back to your job and see what else you can find, hm?"

"Er, sure, I was just wondering if we could hang out—"

Harry leapt to his feet and opened the door before signaling his friend to exit the building. "Goodbye, Ron."

XxXxX

The next appointment had been scheduled in a hurry, something Draco had never really seen before. Most men were satisfied for a few weeks, but Harry just kept coming back. The letter had been so scribbled that Draco could almost see him in his mind's eye, shuddering with anticipation.

This time, Draco came fully armed. He planned on introducing Harry to that domination he'd been seeking and watching him blossom in it. He could see this in even more vivid detail.

He would lay out the rules while keeping Harry close to him. Touching his face, holding his hands, and resting his hands on those hips that he'd loved so much their first time around. The second time, too.

The fantasy didn't last long, however, because the hotel room was right in front of him by the time he got to mentally undressing Harry. Draco would simply have to swap that out for actually undressing Harry. "Someone's impatient," he teased the second he came in and saw Harry waiting eagerly on the edge of the sofa.

Harry was honestly more terrified than eager. "Draco, Ron came to my house—"

"I know," Draco sighed. "I expected him to. I had a bit of a slip, mentioned your name, and I promise it will never happen again." He said it all in a rather bored and predictable tone. Would Ron ever_ really_ arrest Harry Potter for being a John?

"You were there," Harry remembered quietly, feeling stupid for mentioning it.

Draco gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry your pretty little head over it. It's all been taken care of. They've found no evidence and all they have is the Head Auror's rants and ravings; your identity is secure."

With a frown, Harry shifted to make room for Draco on the couch. "It's not me I'm worried about." It took Draco a minute to realize what he meant.

"You can't honestly be fretting over my possible arrest," Draco laughed. "I've dealt with Aurors before. I've got friends and clients alike in the department."

Harry hated it when Draco talked about his other clients.

"Is that why you wanted to see me?" Draco asked quietly as he saw his fantasies turn to ash in his mind.

"That's not the only reason," he assured Draco quickly as if he was trying to keep him around. Draco was _paid_ to be there.

At that, Draco snaked an arm around his waist. "Good," he murmured against Harry's ear. "Because I've been thinking about you."

"You have?"

Usually, this was the part where Draco spun his web of honey and silk. Please the client, let them know they matter, every man deserves that, don't you think? Well, it was what Draco thought about everyone with himself included. "Of course I have." Draco sunk his hand down into the valley of Harry's thighs and ran over the rough jean fabric. "I've been thinking about what you first asked for in your letter."

Swallowing hard, Harry recalled his half-drunken scrawling to a Madam that begged for a man who could tell him what to do, to take charge. He'd mindlessly wanked over muggle porn like that before but now all he could see was Draco tying him down and having his way with him. "Oh."

"So you remember?" Draco asked, trying to coax the request out of Harry. It had to come from the needs and the wants of the submissive; that was the only way it would help him. Draco would obviously benefit, too, but his attention was devoutly dedicated to Harry in that moment.

"I remember," Harry nodded, feeling his face heat up. Nobody had ever gone there with him because he had never trusted them to. But if Draco was lying to Aurors for both of their sakes… "I don't know if I want it."

Carefully, Draco pulled away while keeping Harry's shoulder in his arms. "That's fine, you know. Do you want to talk about it?"

"About my fantasies?" Harry questioned a little sourly.

"About what you're comfortable with," Draco clarified, desperately trying to keep his gaze from becoming as predatory as he felt. "Before we do a scene, I want to know your limits. Over time—if you wish to continue—I want to see how I can test those limits and push them. I want you to be completely open, share everything with me in these sessions. Whatever you're feeling, anything you need, don't you ever be afraid to say it. What I need is for you to trust me implicitly."

Harry stopped short of laughing in his face. He couldn't even trust Ron or Hermione anymore. What made Draco so special? "I don't, though," Harry said carefully.

"I don't expect you to after such a short amount of time," Draco told him gently, laughing a little himself. "That's what I want to talk about."

"About trust?" He scrunched his nose; it sounded like a Dr. Phil special.

"About you," Draco corrected while trying to keep his patience. Harry was new to taking a submissive role, and he had to respect that. "I suppose I'll just lay out the basics, though."

Harry couldn't even believe his school-time rival was talking about dominating him in bed, let alone that there were rules involved. It all seemed absurd, but he honestly had nothing left to lose. "Lay away," Harry invited.

"Well, if you're interested in reading up on this—which I completely encourage you to—its technical term is Bondage, Domination, and Sado-Masochism. It's a mouthful, but so am I," Draco grinned lecherously to get a laugh out of the nervous Harry. "It's entirely consensual. The second it isn't consensual on both sides, it stops. That's what most people who roleplay say, actually. 'Safe, sane, consensual'."

"So there's, like," Harry mumbled as he thought back to some of the porn he'd watched. "A safe word?"

"Personally, I prefer those muggle things that cars use," Draco said, brow furrowing at the memory of what the hell he was talking about. "You know, the ones that are red, yellow, green…?"

Harry smiled. "Stoplights," he offered.

Draco's eyes lit up with the memory. "Yes! Those. If a scene is starting to get too intense or you're starting to feel unsafe, just say 'yellow'. I'll know it means to go lighter and slower, stopping things before they get bad. If I ever violate your comfort zone or hurt you in a way that you don't want, all you have to do is say 'red' and it all stops. If you're gagged, just snap your fingers."

Swallowing down his nerves, Harry nodded obediently. "Is that it?"

"Oh, Harry," Draco smiled as he rested a hand on his cheek. "Hardly. I'd like to ask you to take a look at a questionnaire with me."

"What is this, a personality quiz?" Harry snarked suddenly, the burst of sarcasm coming out of him from seemingly nowhere.

Thankfully, Draco found it funny. "No, but that'd be interesting. This is just a list of what you're comfortable trying, not interested in at all, and things you think you'll like." He summoned the papers with a wave of his unicorn-hair wand.

"Er," Harry let out, seeing how damned long the thing was.

"It's shorter than you think," Draco assured him. "Plus, it helps me get to know you."

"You already know me," Harry laughed. Draco had known him since they were children, and now they were venturing into more adult practices together. It didn't erase their history, though.

Draco shook his head. "Hardly. I know _of_ you." More than anything, he wanted to know Harry inside out. He wanted to see every corner of his brain and reach inside his chest to look for answers. Harry was too lonely, too sad, and Draco knew the answer was in there somewhere. He was no therapist, but he could try.

What Draco was saying made sense. "Fine. Let's just fill out the damned thing."

As a reward, Draco gave him a smack of a kiss right on the lips. Harry hadn't been expecting it, but the intention behind the gesture was not lost on him. "Good boy," Draco grinned, making something inside Harry click into place. "Now, it's in alphabetical order, so how do you feel about abrasion?"

Harry didn't even have a clue what that was.

XxXxX

"Chastity devices?"

"I though the whole point of this was to have sex," Harry frowned.

Draco shook his head, feeling like he was taking Harry on a tour of all things kink. "It's not all about that. It's about feeling good, being rewarded, and being satisfied."

"And what does chastity have to do with that?"

"I think it's hot," Draco shrugged. "The idea of you squirming in your bed, waking from having a wet dream. You want to come so desperately like you usually do, but you can't. I'm the only source of your pleasure, and only I can break the spell. So, while you wait, you helplessly rut into the sheets until your whole body is throbbing and you're on the phone pleading for me to come over."

"_Oh_."

XxXxX

Draco checked off the last one with a smile as a definite must. "Alright, now we're onto the 'p' section."

"No bathroom stuff," Harry shook his head, horrified.

"I mean the letter 'p'! Believe me, I'm with you on that one," Draco laughed. "Now, Harry Potter, how would you feel about wearing panties?"

Harry had thought they'd covered that by how embarrassingly willing he was to cross-dress earlier on the list. "I'd like it," he mumbled quietly so that Draco almost couldn't hear him.

"Hmm?" Draco had heard, but he wanted to hear Harry ask for it.

"I'd like that," Harry said, louder this time.

"Good. I'll go shopping for you, then."

Half of Harry wished he'd kept his mouth shut, and the other half couldn't wait.

XxXxX

"Oh, this one's a personal favorite," Draco grinned. "Student-teacher roleplay."

"You spent too much time in the dungeons during school," Harry decided. That had to explain how so many kinks wound up in one person. It wouldn't surprise Harry if Draco had been stringing boys up in there since first year.

Draco smirked. "Yeah, but I unfortunately never got to fuck any teachers."

"_Unfortunately_?"

He gave Harry a little swat on the arm. "Quit judging me. I just like a little reassurance that I'm doing well in their class, and if I'm not, I want some assurance that I'll at least get a passing grade."

"Then how'd you pass Care of Magical Creatures?" Harry wondered as he caught on to the joke.

"Fortunately, no sex was involved," Draco informed him. "I just did well on the written parts of it, so I was never required to go near anything too foul after that oversized chicken nearly killed me."

Oh, that day was definitely a lucid one in Harry's mind. Those were happier times, when an 'oversized chicken' was a story worth laughing over. "Buckbeak did not almost kill you," he reminded Draco. "It was just a little nip."

"That 'little nip' had me in a sling for months!" Draco argued. He had never quite let that memory go.

Harry rested his head on Draco's shoulder fondly. "You milked that one, Malfoy."

"Oh, shove it, Potter."

Something sort of strange was happening. Draco was getting to know Harry, and now Harry was getting to know Draco. Not Mr. Malfoy, not Draco the whore, not ex-Death Eater Malfoy; just Draco.

XxXxX

Finally, they were done. Harry had also finally gotten slightly used to discussing his desires out loud. Progress, he supposed.

"So," Harry murmured, wringing his hands once Draco put the Vanished the questionnaire back to his flat for inspection later. Later, the Slytherin would finely tailor an experience for Harry that he hoped would alleviate some of the worry-lines on his face.

"How are you?" Draco asked just to reaffirm that Harry was comfortable.

An arm wrapped around Harry. "I'm… Good. I think I'm good," he managed with a little shock at the question. "And, er, you?"

"Just fine," Draco responded with a kiss to his temple.

"So, are we going to, uh, do that stuff?" Harry asked nervously.

"Next time," Draco assured him, holding him tight. Now was the time to make him feel comfortable and reassured. More than anything, Draco wanted to avoid a sub-drop on their first session.

Harry nodded, letting out a rush of relief. He still needed time to wrap his head around it all. Slowly and nervously, the tips of Harry's fingers brushed against Draco's thigh. "Could we still…?"

Draco kissed his temple again with a laugh. "Of course. Tell me what you want."

"You," Harry answered honestly.

Completely up to giving Harry what he wanted, Draco hauled him in for a kiss on the couch. Harry clumsily climbed atop Draco and tried to position himself in spite of his lack of practice and general know-how.

Draco guided Harry's wrists with his hands so that he could get the full, unadulterated experience of Draco Malfoy in the flesh.

When Draco slid Harry's hands up the front of his shirt, Harry let out a little shudder. "Take it off," Harry asked, thriving on Draco's undivided attention. His legs were spread over Draco's hips so that he could rock their hips together.

With his wand now in hand, Draco Vanished all of his clothing piece by piece. Shirt, trousers, and shoes were all gone in a wave of a wand. Harry's eyes widened, immediately dipping down to kiss his chest. He mimicked what Draco had done in their first encounter by tracing Draco's nipple with his finger.

"Such a sweet boy," Draco purred when his hands sunk into Harry's hair. Almost like he was teaching Harry all over again, he slowly tugged him downwards so that his mouth hovered over the small puff of blonde hair on Draco's groin.

Parting his lips slightly, Harry felt warmth pool in his stomach at the idea of pleasing Draco. He was stumbling over his own body most of the time, but Harry was dedicated.

Harry took Draco's hardening cock in his mouth, sucking on the head until Draco let out a throaty groan for more.

Draco guided Harry's hand to wrap around the base of his prick and stroke. Harry quickly caught on—Draco admired what a fast learner he was—and pumped his mouth in time with his hand. When the bulge in his pants brushed against Draco's knee, the blonde used his wand to Vanish Harry's clothes as well.

The rush of cold had Harry clinging to Draco's skin, drawing his mouth away from Draco to let out a shudder. "Cold," he grinned.

"Here," Draco said, handing Harry a bottle of warming lubricant. The sight of it made Harry swallow back his apprehensions. He was going to have Draco, and Draco was really going to be his. For a moment, anyway.

Harry popped open the cap and slid his fingers inside the bottle to feel the warmth closed in around him. "You're so beautiful," he murmured, spreading the lube across his fingers as Draco parted his legs. "You're so fantastic, you're so—" Harry cut himself off when he realized Draco had begun to stroke his own cock.

The sight of Draco touching himself made Harry's member jump. "I'm so…?" Draco asked languidly when he realized what Harry was staring at.

"Woah," Harry breathed. _Very eloquent, Potter,_ Harry thought to himself, abashed in front of Draco's uncompromisingly sexual demeanor.

To make up for his lack of articulation, Harry nudged his finger up against Draco's hole. "Are you sure?"

"Fuck, yes, Harry," Draco rasped impatiently. "Shag me already."

Harry slid two experimental fingers in at once when he was met with a load moan from Draco. Pushing them in and out, Harry tried to imagine his prick inside Draco; his erection throbbed at the very thought.

Two more fingers pushed their way inside of Draco to open him up, brushing up against a spot that made him writhe back onto his fingers. "Wait," Draco murmured between gasps, summoning a condom from the stack he kept in his room. "Let me."

Harry nodded breathlessly and watched as Draco sat up with the fingers still inside of him. Draco ripped the packaging open with his teeth to reveal a thin rubber layer.

"Hips forward," Draco ordered.

As always, Harry obeyed without hesitation. He let Draco's long and elegant fingers trail down his cock just to tease him before pushing the condom on over his erection. While Draco was up there, he decided to give Harry a quick peck on the lips.

The gesture made Harry wrap his hand around Draco's shoulder, pulling him back so that Harry was the one laying down on the couch as Draco hovered over him. When he caught on to the change of positions, Draco grinned. "Want me to ride you?"

"Yes," Harry whimpered as he lined up their hips a little desperately.

Draco took Harry into him as the fingers slid out of him, filling the gap inside him. He let out a hiss, adjusting to the size of Harry's cock. "Someone's a big boy," Draco murmured.

The compliment out of left field had Harry squirming beneath him to thrust his hips up to go deeper. "Takes one to know one."

Chuckling softly, Draco pulled up and shoved his hips back down again to take his full length in. Harry's groan was primal, his hands flying to grasp Draco's sides. "Fuck," Draco moaned, angling his hips so that the head of Harry's cock would hit Draco's prostate with every thrust.

Harry's nails dug into Draco's pale skin. "Draco," he gasped. "That's it, fuck."

"Tell me what you want," Draco demanded again, bringing his hips up again to shove back down onto his cock.

After a strangled gasp, Harry found words again. "Fuck yourself on me," he begged with each thrust.

Draco complied and clamped his hand around his leaking prick, stroking himself as he took more and more of Harry inside him.

A chorus of groans rose to a crescendo when Harry's hips thrust up for a final push and felt himself explode inside of Draco. He screamed out his name, arching his back into the couch cushions.

Draco came only moments later so that Harry could catch a beautiful moment of fixed ecstasy on his face. It was fleeting, but it was gorgeous. His eyes screwed shut and his lips open in a moan.

Harry's back collapsed into the couch and brought Draco down with his hands to rest his head in the crook of Harry's neck.

Covered in sweat, Draco's come, and gasping for breath, Harry gripped him so hard that Draco would have never been able to fight his way out of the grasp if he even wanted to. Draco was so bloody_ real_.

Real, and in the present, and oh-so deliciously sated.

In a strange way, Harry was happy he found that advertisement for a rent boy in the back of Gay Wizard's Weekly. Harry was happy.


	8. Chapter 8: Bruised

**AN:** This one is for Srishti and Jyotsna because of obvious reasons. I love you crazy bitches. Also, there's so much D/s in this chapter that my brain has turned to soup.

**Chapter 8: Bruised**

A single finger ghosted down Harry's spine.

The touch was light, but it shocked him. His eyes were blindfolded and he hadn't even been able to hear where Draco had been walking before. Shivering under Draco's touch and unable to move his bound hands, he heard the other man let out a little laugh.

"Ticklish?" Draco asked curiously.

"No," Harry answered quickly. This first session had his nerves in a knot and his mind racing. What if he messed something up? Or he had to make Draco stop?

"Tsk, tsk," Draco interrupted his thoughts. "You forgot something."

Harry immediately scrambled to please him. That was what he had looked forward to all that day, after all. He had looked out his window and willed the sun to go down even faster. "No, Sir," he corrected quickly. "Sorry, Sir."

Draco gave him a quick pinch on the arse since he couldn't quit let a slip-up slide. "You're going to remember from now on," Draco told him.

Another surprised noise escaped Harry when Draco's trimmed nails clamped down on his skin and twisted. "Yes, Sir," he cried out when Draco didn't release the pinch.

Grinning, Draco finally let him go. He had left a small red mark on Harry's right arse cheek, and it left Draco to imagine just what that pale, naked body of his would look like when they were done. He was thin with worry, and Draco was surprised he didn't have wrinkles even at this incredibly young age. Once again, Draco yearned to capture that bliss he saw when Harry was at ease, and multiply it with domination. "Now there's my good boy."

Draco decided that now was the best time to examine what he'd won, to take in the gorgeous man who had willingly handed himself over to Draco.

With a rough hand, Draco guided him over to a nearby desk. "Bend over it," he commanded, watching Harry stumble to comply. Harry's hands were still tied in their silk hold behind him, so that Harry couldn't even touch himself when he wanted to.

"You want that blindfold off, right?" Draco asked as his hand clamped down around Harry's neck, holding his head to the desktop.

Harry let out a whine at the restraint. "I want whatever you want, Sir," he said without thinking. When the words left his mouth, Harry was left to wonder if they were true.

Now, that surprised Draco. "Salazar, you're slutty for it," Draco laughed. "It makes me wonder how many other strange blokes you let get you out of your clothes and rough you up."

"Just you, Sir."

"Doubt it," he sneered back. "I can see it so clearly. The Grand Harry Potter, ready to strip and get fucked by anyone who'll do the job. Maybe I'll take you to a club some time and pass you around, hm? Lots of men would kill for a chance to break you like I will."

Harry shuddered, and honestly wished he could have touched himself right there. Draco's voice was so imperious, almost like Harry was receiving orders from a king.

Digging his nails, into Harry's hair and yanking up, Draco's teeth came down on his earlobe. "Do you know what happens to sluts like you?" Harry had really seemed to warm up to that word, and it made Draco want to stretch how far he could go with it.

He supposed that was a rhetorical question, and it was a little hard to answer with Draco close to tugging his hair out.

"You get punished," Draco answered for him before releasing his hair. Harry's head banged down onto the desk and he screwed his eyes shut at the throbbing headache it gave him. "If you can take this, I'll take the blindfold off."

In a sick way, Harry supposed that was fair. His swollen cock hung heavy between his legs, not hard just yet. "Thank you, Sir," Harry offered.

_Such a love_, Draco thought to himself happily as he walked over to the bed and left Harry to peruse the collection of toys he'd brought. An assortment of crops, floggers, spreading-bars, and vibrators made him feel like the choices were almost unlimited.

Draco knew exactly which to use, though. He had a paddle with the word 'slut' carved into it that left it imprinted on the skin of whoever it touched. Of course it was temporary, but Draco wanted Harry to look in the mirror the next day and remember.

Meanwhile, Harry was left to squirm and wait. The thought of what the pain would be was sort of terrifying. He'd known he'd wanted this in an abstract way for years now, but nobody had ever really beaten him. Not since the war.

"You're shaking," Draco noticed quietly as he returned to stroke Harry's back. "Tell me what's going on."

Harry's face reddened. "I'm, er, I'm scared, Sir."

Draco continued his soothing rub. "I know," he told him carefully. "Take a deep breath; that's it. I'm right here, Harry."

Even though it didn't make much sense, Harry's felt slightly comforted.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, Sir," Harry said without knowing if he meant it or not. He could feel Draco positioning himself and lining up with a strong hand on Harry's hip.

"Count for me," Draco ordered. "I'll be giving you fifteen." Without so much as waiting for a response, Draco slammed the paddle against the top of Harry's thighs, leaving a thick red stripe that marked him with a loud smack.

Harry cried out when the stinging pain spread like wildfire over him. "Fuck," he gasped, reeling. "_Fuck_."

"Count," Draco snapped as he held Harry to the desk to keep him from crumpling at the pain.

Through gritted teeth, Harry tried. "One."

Draco brought the wooden paddle down again right above Harry's knees. His leg muscles buckled under the sharp slap while Draco's nails dug into the base of his spine to keep him steady.

"Two," Harry remembered, wishing he had something to bite down on. Maybe Draco had a gag with him… The thought didn't last long, considering the almost overwhelming burn his legs felt.

"That's it," Draco murmured, rubbing the enflamed skin. "That's it, you're doing so well."

The caresses reawakened the overwhelmed nerves. Harry hadn't expected praise, of all things. It gave him the extra push to straighten back up and offer himself to be spanked again.

"Three," he gasped as this one stretched right across this arse. "Four, _fuck_, five!" They were quick and fleeting, with Draco rubbing away the sting.

"You're so fucking gorgeous," Draco breathed, wedging his palm in between Harry's legs. "Spread your legs for me like a good slut."

Harry spread his legs only to feel a cold metal clamp around his ankles, keeping his feet spread wide so that his balance was uneven. The only thing keeping him from falling was Draco's steady hand clamped on his hips.

The hand stayed there while Draco dropped to his knees, licking a stripe up the inside of Harry's thigh. Almost involuntarily, Harry moaned.

Feeling that Harry was getting a little too much leeway, Draco smacked the inside of his calf with the paddle. "Six," Harry shuddered; trying to slam is legs shut to stop the pain but finding them locked in place.

Draco gave his other leg a smack just to keep things symmetrical, watching Harry squirm for some relief. "Seven," he whined.

"You're going to wear these bruises," Draco breathed, watching them blossom across his abused skin while he lingered absolutely drunk on power. "Whenever you try to sit down, you'll remember who you belong to."

"Master," Harry rasped out when another hard blow whacked against the inside of his thigh. "Eight."

Draco paddled number nine down especially hard right down the middle of his arse and listened to his pitiful counting.

"That's right," he growled. "You're nothing but my little slut, and I can fuck you and hurt you whenever I please. I'm your master."

"Yes," Harry whimpered, his cock now shamelessly hard again. Somehow, the pain felt distant and detached. All he knew was that Draco was touching him and that he couldn't do a damned thing about it. Well, he could if he said the safe-word, but that was the last thing Harry wanted. "Ten!"

"Just five more," Draco told him, rubbing the beautiful red marks. "Breathe through it."

Harry could almost see the end of the pain, and it made him work harder for what he hoped would come afterwards. It was almost mindless for him to please Draco and did exactly what he said. There was no need to remember, or worry, or anything.

Harry curved his back so his arse stuck up in the air. Draco smirked and spanked him with the paddle right where he had the first time. The blow rippled across Harry's skin and made his arse shake. "Eleven," Harry groaned.

Draco smacked that sensitive skin again and Harry's entire body shuddered. He could tell Harry was close to the edge. "Twelve," he rasped out, cock bobbing between his legs.

"So hot," Draco murmured, thrusting a hand down the front of his tight leather pants to rub his own prick.

Draco brought the paddle down again, this time making the imprint of 'slut' come out perfectly on Harry's arse. "Thirteen, fuck," Harry whimpered. The swell of pain made his heart thump in his chest. He wasn't sure he could take much more; not when his bruises would probably have bruises. "It hurts, Sir, it hurts so bad," he sobbed out.

"I know, I know. There are only two left," he told him, winding up for number fourteen.

"Fourteen!" he cried out desperately, trying now more than ever to close his legs and stop the constant thrumming of his senses.

The paddle struck Harry again, but this time at an angle. The final strike came down on his arse so hard that it hit his scrotum and sent a spike of pure torture ravage his body. His head spun, and he could have sworn he was falling off of the side of the bloody hotel. "Fifteen," Harry finished when the blindfold still hadn't been removed and the pain still evident in his voice.

Draco gathered up his dizzy Harry in his arms, wandlessly unlatching the spreader bar around his ankles. It took Harry a second to figure out that he was being carried rather than levitated, but the fact that his lower body was pulsing with his heartbeat was a tad distracting.

"Sir?" Harry asked carefully, clinging to him.

"Hush, I'm taking you to bed."

This time, Draco picked a different bedroom from the one they'd been using. He wanted a view of the London cityscape to show Harry when he gave him back his sight.

Harry whined when his arse was placed on soft sheets since he found that to be too much. He rolled onto his stomach and rested his head to the side when Draco began to undo the knot that held his blindfold in place.

Carefully, he raised his eyes to look up at Draco. Thank Merlin he had, because Draco looked beautiful.

Ignoring the view of the city entirely, Harry could only see the blonde, his leather pants, and wry smile.

"There's my pet," Draco purred, pulling him close and kissing his nose. "Now, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything, Sir."

"On your back," Draco told him, separating their nuzzled bodies.

Harry whimpered at the thought.

"Are you disobeying me?" Draco questioned, sinking his nails into Harry's shoulder and moving to twist him over.

"No, Sir," Harry murmured before reluctantly pressing his bruised legs down onto the thick covers.

"That's what I thought." Draco's eyes took in every crevice and imperfection that Harry hated so much. In one probing look, they were all exposed. "Gorgeous," Draco told him factually. "Absolutely exquisite."

Harry smiled, feeling like a child all over again before him. "Thank you, Sir."

Gently sweeping Harry's hair behind his ear, Draco was feeling rather affectionate after that little scene. Not affectionate enough to stop, however. "Touch yourself," he told him as he undid the binds behind Harry's back to free his hands.

Harry tested out his freedom by wriggling his fingers and returning them to his side. He didn't forget Draco's order, though. His fist wrapped around his limp cock. It honestly didn't take much at all to get him hard again, not when Draco was watching him like that.

"Naughty boy," Draco laughed. "You can do this a little too well. How often do you wank?"

Harry _had_ promised him complete honesty… "A lot, Sir," he admitted, somehow loving the way it felt when he stroked his cock and pressed his bruised bottom down on the covers.

"Who do you think about?"

"Normally?" Harry asked, a little distracted with his own pleasure the he forgot to address Draco by his proper name. "Sir," he added quickly.

Just for that, Draco gave him a smack on the thigh. Harry yelled out and involuntarily clenched his hand tight around his prick.

"Yes, normally," he snarked, rubbing the hand-mark he had on his thigh. "And recently."

"Blokes in Quidditch, mainly, Sir. And recently… You, Sir."

"Such a good boy," Draco murmured. "What do you think about me doing?"

Harry kept his eyes fixed on Draco's even though the other man had slid his pants off. "I think about you in bed with me," Harry admitted. "I think about you touching me, sucking me off… I think about you inside me and the way it felt to be inside of you. I think about you breaking me down until I'm just a regular person with a clean slate, and then I think about how nice it would be to curl up next to you and have you take care of me, make me feel good again. Sir."

Draco couldn't have stopped pumping his hand along his length if he tried. Harry had let himself be so vulnerable, and with what felt like a stab in the chest, Draco realized he'd let himself be vulnerable too.

With a quiet moan, Draco batted away Harry's hand to stroke them both in tandem. The usually articulate man had been reduced to his most carnal needs. The pressure built up inside him quicker than he cared to admit.

"Can I come?" Harry panted into his neck. "Please, Sir, can I come?"

"Yes," Draco gave in without thinking, thrusting into his own strokes. Harry's cock felt so fantastic against his; it was almost maddening.

In a fury of wild moans, thrusts, and one very loud gasp of pain from Harry when Draco's hand closed around a reddened arse cheek. "Draco!" he yelled out, coming _hard_.

The aftershock rushed through his body before ebbing away in slow, exhilarating waves. "Harry," Draco gasped, clinging onto him tightly enough to leave fresh bruises on his shoulders. "That was brilliant, you were brilliant."

"Really?" Harry asked carefully.

"Of course," Draco told him, holding Harry close to him. "It was your first time, and you did splendidly." Draco had to be sure this round of aftercare was especially affectionate.

Harry was exhausted and muscle fatigue was setting in, but he was glowing with pride. "Thanks. For everything."

"You don't have to thank me," Draco reminded him, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

"I want to," Harry decided. "That was like nothing I've ever felt before. I don't even know if I can put it into words."

"Do you want to put it into words?"

"Not really, no." That might ruin the magic. "But I was sort of in a tunnel. Like, all I could focus on was you."

Draco's fingers stroked Harry's scalp, soothing the skin that he had made pink from pulling Harry's hair so hard. Harry melted at his touch. "It's called sub-space," he told him gently. "It's a huge rush of endorphins." Ones that Harry had been desperately missing out on.

"Oh." Harry hadn't realized that there was a name for it. "It's nice." In Draco's arms, he sort of felt suspended in the air. "Have you ever, er, not been the dominant?"

"Yeah," Draco recalled. "I've subbed a couple of times, but never for clients. It runs too high a risk of me losing control of the situation and being forced into something."

Until that very moment, Harry had forgotten Draco was a prostitute. The reminder was definitely not welcome in his current ecstasy, so he shut it out. He didn't want to think about the possibility of Draco being raped or cheated out of money when he deserved so much better.

Carefully, Draco watched Harry's face for a reaction. After all, what goes up must come down.

Sub-drop for Harry could prove crushing. The high would only last so long, and he wanted to help Harry back down as evenly as he could. Maybe Harry would even be happier at the end of the high than he was before it. In Draco's mind it was like a staircase. If Harry really had hit rock bottom like he had suspected, there was no place to go but up now. Draco couldn't bear to see him lose any progress he'd made.

"Do you want something to drink?" Draco asked. "Or maybe we could order something from room service?"

Suddenly, Harry realized how thirsty he was. "Uh, yeah. All of that." How had he not even known he was hungry?

"Alright," Draco said happily, summoning the phone over to the bed. "I'll get some chocolate, too. We can restore electrolytes and such."

"Wow, that's sexy," Harry snarked, resting his chin on Draco's shoulder in spite of the pain sitting up caused him.

Before Draco dialed, he wanted to tie up all loose ends. "So, you really like a good spanking, hm?"

Harry didn't even blush this time. "Yeah," he said. "That was good. Especially when you, erm. When you called me a slut."

"I loved seeing you react to the dirty talk," Draco told him openly, on his own little rush. "Would you be interested in exploring it further?"

"Definitely," Harry said, snatching up a room service menu. "We should get pizza. Multiple pizzas." Harry sort of felt like rolling an entire pie up like a burrito and sucking it down his throat. He hadn't been that hungry in a long time.

"Multiple pizzas it is," Draco said, amused at how quickly Harry had managed to transition the subject matter. He dialed the number and leaned back into Harry's chest.

XxXxX

Nervously, Ginny poured another pink packet of some sugar-type thing into her coffee. Draco was late, and she was in crisis mode.

The waitress had been nice enough not to ask if the man showing up was her boyfriend, since they'd certainly been mistaken for that a few times before. Once at a club when he showed her how to drink from a vodka luge, and once when they left a fancy restaurant arm-in-arm. That had been when she earned her first paycheck and took Draco out to celebrate.

Eyes still locked on the packets of sugar, Ginny was faced with some tough decisions. After all, were the pink packets really better than the blue ones? What was the actual difference between the two? Sure, they were different brands, but did there really need to be more than one sugar-making brand? Well, maybe to prevent a monopoly on sugar, yes.

To put it mildly, Ginny's attempt at distracting herself failed miserably.

She checked her muggle phone for the hundredth time, and perked up when the chimes on the door rang. Unfortunately it was only an elderly couple looking rather unpleasant—the sort Ginny knew would frown on her plunging neckline and uncovered ankles—and taking a seat at the table behind her.

"Did you remember your wallet?"

"What?"

"Nothing, Irving," the woman sighed.

Ginny certainly didn't pity them. When she had almost had enough, Ginny looked down to see a new text message.

_Order me some waffles, I'm starving. Be there in five. –DM_

"Prick," she muttered before waving over the waitress.

"Can I get you anything?" the woman drawled, sounding about as interested as she looked.

"Another cup of coffee—with cream and two sugars—and a plate of waffles. If you can, spell out 'arse' in syrup across them," Ginny said as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

That at least broke the waitress' spell of boredom. Her fiery curls bounced as she looked Ginny up and down. "Well then," she grinned. "Coming right up."

Ginny watched her walk away in that cute little diner uniform with a sweet smile to conceal her not-so-innocent thoughts. Maybe she'd slip the woman her card as she walked out, but decided against it once she remembered that people that worked in diners couldn't exactly afford her. That little fact made her smile.

She loved it. She loved it more than she ever thought she would. Ginny was her own boss, everything was scheduled for her entertainment, leaving all of the control in the world in the palm of her hand.

Draco burst in just as she began fantasizing in greater detail about the waitress and sat down across from her.

"You're late," Ginny told him.

"You're going to have to deal with it," Draco told her with a sardonic grin. "Did you order my breakfast?"

Ginny gave him a little kick under the table. "I did. What made you late?"

She nagged like he was her boyfriend, anyway. "I was with a client," he explained. "Now can we move on?"

"Not until you give me details," Ginny decided.

"It was the same old," Draco shrugged, having been with Julius the night before. "The German with the back hair." They never referred to their clients by name, just by a few key descriptors.

"Nothing like a nice shag to wake you up."

Draco couldn't help but agree with that, even if the experience had been a little lackluster. He was just off, that was all. It was an off week; an off month. "Someone sounds delighted with their newest prospect."

"She's beautiful," Ginny gushed. "I should thank you again for the referral."

"I knew you two would get along," Draco beamed. After all, Pansy Parkinson had all the money in the world and nothing to do with it. Inexperienced men at parties and clubs had begun to bore her.

"But you sound like you aren't thrilled about your last lay."

Draco shrugged. In a moment of clarity, he saw Ginny transitioning along with him, just in different directions. Ginny's client list had amassed to the double digits which Draco's had shrunken down to a single number again. Nine. Nine men was the lowest Draco had entertained since the beginning of his career when he juggled three.

"He was good," Draco said honestly. Objectively, he had a nice cock and a fat wallet, and he knew how to use both rather well. "I came three times, he came four. It was good."

"Gee, what a raving review," Ginny laughed.

Before Draco could send back a snide comment, a plate of waffles was placed in front of him. He almost dug in before realizing the syrup wasn't very evenly distributed. "'Arse'?" Draco snorted out.

Ginny nodded, appearing nonchalant. When the waitress walked away snickering, Ginny revealed her reasoning. "It's because I know how much you love eating arse."

It was so stupid, so silly, and so out of the blue that Draco just had to laugh. "How considerate of you," he smirked. "And like I said, the German was good."

"Not great?"

"He was great in his own sense of the word," Draco explained carefully. After the sex, they'd taken a bath together and Draco had even got a foot rub out of it.

"What is wrong with you?" Ginny pursued, brow knitting in frustration. Usually Draco told her every gory detail without holding a single thing back, even when Ginny wished he would.

Draco shook his head dismissively. "Nothing, now hush up and split this waffle with me."

That was their delicious life, after all. Food, sex, laughter, and all things pleasurable made up their day, walking in a suspended paradise for as long as it lasted.

Ginny's worst fear was that her brother would be the one to bring it crashing down, but she didn't talk about it like she had planned. She kept on eating her waffle and making jokes and kicking Draco under the table until he complained of bruises.


	9. Chapter 9: Bedtime Stories

AN: This one's for K, because I said so. I really am starting to miss writing MBFPW! I have so many ideas for what's going to happen next in that series after I wrap up this one.

**Chapter 9: Bedtime Stories**

Five days before Christmas and Harry had barely even decorated. It was pitiful.

With his wand, Harry had at least managed to throw some tinsel on the staircases and put up a tree with limited ornaments and a particularly sad-looking angel on top. Her face was cracked and her wings dusty as ever.

Kicking off his shoes, Harry wished he was back in the hotel. The session had left his back covered in marks from Draco's riding crop and had strangely enough given him a good night of sleep.

"_Tell me a bedtime story," Harry had requested playfully, resting in Draco's arms after another episode of series three of Doctor Who. It really had grown on Draco. Then again, Doctor Who sort of grew on everyone. For him, it was the common themes and human emotions that reverberated so strongly in every episode. Nothing was stronger than that spirit, and even the aliens had it._

"_You've just watched stone angels terrify a man who's nine-hundred years old," Draco pointed out. "I don't know if my stories can compare."_

_Harry laughed. Draco had a point, after all. "I need something to help me fall asleep, and I like your voice."_

"_My voice likes you."_

"_Your cock likes me."_

"_You're a cock," Draco decided with a grin. He also happened to like how they could talk without really saying anything important at all._

_Nuzzling close, Harry smiled. "Still."_

"_Okay, okay. Have you ever heard the ones from Tales of Beetle the Bard?" Narcissa used to read those to him over and over again, while Draco whined for yet another retelling. While mummy dearest was torn apart by what her son did for a living, she would never forget those stories just like he wouldn't._

"_Only one," Harry answered. "'The Three Brothers'."_

"_Never did like that one," Draco recalled. "I mean, you get a wish for absolutely anything in the world, and you waste it on cloaks, wands, and stones?"_

_Having held all of those in his hands, Harry frowned. "What would you wish for, then?" He'd like to see what the Great Draco Malfoy—never having lost his quiet arrogance in spite of the metamorphosis he had undergone—would ask of death._

"_More wishes."_

_Harry actually laughed out loud. "Oh, come on, the first rule of getting a wish is that you can't wish for more."_

"_That's not what it said in the story," Draco shrugged. "I would make death my bitch. I'd make the bastard my personal servant. Nothing could quite beat dressing up death in a tutu and making him serve me chocolate éclairs."_

_Draco Malfoy: The Man Who Dommed for Death. "You're out of your mind."_

Harry liked that. The striking of the balance between Draco as a real man with needs for power and control grappling with the struggles of surviving alone in a rough economy where everyone already had a bias against him and the aspect of Draco that was almost above it all was beautiful.

Quietly, Harry did what he did best. He panicked. Draco Malfoy was _beautiful_.

Somehow between meetings and the funneling of gold from the Potter family vault at Gringotts, Draco had become beautiful. Or maybe he always was beautiful, and Harry was finally wising up.

"Merlin," Harry said quietly, looking up at his cracked angel on top of the tree. "I am fucked. Entirely, completely, and wholly fucked."

The whole thing was mad.

"Well, way to cock it up," Harry muttered to himself bitterly. "You can't even have an affair with a prostitute properly without realizing you're falling for him."

_Fuck_. He really was falling for him, wasn't he? It had been a long, long time since that had happened to Harry. The sweaty palms, the jittery nerves, the sudden but intense urge to throw up… It was all there.

Harry should have honestly expected that since he'd screwed up almost everything except murdering Tom Riddle thus far that nothing else would be different. There was a sort of bliss that came along with this failure, though. It was followed right up by dread and the knowledge that Draco was hardly interested in a romantic relationship.

Romance! With Draco Malfoy? Even that brought up a new sense of dread. The air around Harry was saturated with his own emotion as if the old wooden boards of Grimmauld Place could suck up and hold onto his every feeling.

Harry certainly hoped that wasn't true. If so, then his house would have to be drained of all the horrible memories that Sirius kept there. More than ever, he wanted to talk with his godfather.

Sirius would have understood, Sirius would have laughed… Sirius was the first person Harry told about his sexuality, after all. It was a queer memory—no pun intended—because of the way Sirius had acted after his grand acceptance and showering of praise. It was almost as if Sirius was trying to tell him something or get something off of his chest.

Whatever it was, Harry would probably never know.

All it took was one simple transition in thought and Harry was depressed again. He could feel his mood dip low within seconds; it was sort of funny like that, he supposed. One second he was fine and the next he wanted to rip his hair out and wallow in his own suffering.

Harry wouldn't allow that to happen this time.

He conjured up his happiest memories. Thoughts of laughing with Ron and Hermione, how loyal Hedwig had been… No, those were all tainted with death. Hermione had to force her parents to forget her existence to keep them safe, and Ron lost a brother… The image of them laughing around the fire in fifth year about Ron's emotional range being utensil-sized was blurred.

Maybe the blur wasn't irreparable, though. All Harry needed was some clarity, right? At least he hoped so.

Putting his shoes back on and not once wincing with pain as he donned his cloak, Harry marched to the floo system so quickly that the nagging voice in his head didn't have time to tell him what a bad idea it was.

XxXxX

"Ron, just let it be," Blaise hissed, snatching back the hotel address. He had lost his cool when Ron found the damn place, and things had only gone downhill from there.

The argument looked rather out of place in the festive Ministry offices, with garland and tinsel hung everywhere for the holiday season. The receptionist just down the hall was wearing a mistletoe headband and stringing lights around her desk.

Back in his office, the Head Auror narrowed his eyes. "This is our location, Zabini. Natasha's husband worked there before marrying her, and that's the only paper trail they've left. How else does someone meet a prostitute?"

"Plenty of ways, I assure you."

"You're disgusting," Ron muttered. "This is against the_ law_; the law we have to uphold! So, no, I am not 'letting it be'." From Ginny to Blaise, everyone who had told Ron to keep his freckled nose out of it was going to be rather disappointed.

Ron didn't even want to think of the women Blaise had forced to sleep with him for money. He seemed the sort to do that, though. After the war, Ron never really could fully trust a Slytherin. They always had some agenda.

"We're going there when the most rooms are booked—for one night, by the way—and we're taking them down," he ordered. He was still Blaise's superior and he would be damned if the scowling man forgot that.

"You're making a mistake, Weasel."

If Harry hadn't burst into his office, Ron would have thrown a proper fit about Blaise calling him that. They weren't in school anymore!

"Hey," Harry said a little breathlessly while Ron took him in. The Chosen One looked like a mess. His hair was up at strange angles, his glasses were smudged, his robes were buttoned up the wrong way, and one of his muggle shoes was untied. "Am I interrupting?"

"Yes," Blaise sighed at the same time that Ron said: "No."

Ron glared at his partner. "Get out of here, Zabini. I don't want to hear you bring this up again."

"This wild goose chase is a waste of Ministry resources," he tried anyway. "You're not busting a drugs ring or a squadron of killers—in fact, there have been some New Age Death Eater sightings in Knockturn Alley! Why can't we focus on that instead of a few Johns who pay for consensual sex?"

"I've put Auror Hamish on that case," Ron snapped, rising from his chair so quickly it made Harry take a step back. "You either raid the hotel with me, or I suspend you. I'm not fucking around here, Zabini. You have to do your job."

Reluctant as ever, Blaise stepped down.

"So, will you do your job?"

"Yes," Blaise muttered, humiliated that this happened in front of Potter.

Ron nodded. "Good. Now get out of my office."

The whole debacle came to a close when Blaise stormed out, slamming the door behind him. It was a very Draco-esque flair.

Harry didn't quite know what to say to Ron. He'd never seen him at work, and he'd definitely never seen him as the boss of the Auror Division. "That was…" Harry tried.

"I don't want to yell at him," Ron muttered, his stoic face turning back to one of worry. Only a moment later that worried look was hidden in Ron's hands as he rubbed his eyes. The man looked exhausted. "I haven't been sleeping since Rose has been having nightmares, and I really can't take anything else right now."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me."

Ron shook his head. "Yes, I do. I've been too absorbed in this case, I know that." The case that would possibly ruin Draco and Harry's lives, yes. "Sorry. Sit down, Harry. Tell me what's going on." If Ron missed yet another opportunity to connect with his best mate or if he fucked it up again, he might never be able to forgive himself. This was the man he'd gone to war with.

Harry took a seat but felt the words dry up in his mouth. "Just, er, visiting. I needed to get out of the house, y'know?"

"I know," Ron said with a tentative grin. "I'm glad you're out."

"I am, too." Now Harry was really at a crossroads. How could he get Ron off of this case, and would ever be able to tell Ron what he had done with Draco? The man would probably hate him, and Hermione would too. "I… I've been talking to someone." There, that was fairly innocuous.

The other man brightened in his seat. "Like, a professional? Harry, that's great, Hermione has been suggesting that all along."

"I know," Harry sighed.

"So is the person helping?"

"He is."

"'He'?" Ron asked with a certain twinkle in his eye. "Is he hot?"

Harry had to hold back a laugh when an image of Draco Malfoy in a therapist's chair with thick-rimmed glasses came to mind. "Yeah," he told Ron honestly before cracking a smile.

That was better news than Ron had ever hoped for. "Brilliant," Ron laughed. "Does he like blokes?" Gay people could tell that sort of thing, right?

"Yeah," Harry answered again.

"That's fantastic!" Ron announced. "Next time you meet with him, you better get a date out of it. If you want to, you can give me his name so I can check his criminal history. Never know what kind of freaks are hopping into bed these days."

"Thanks, but no thanks. We haven't really done anything outside of sessions."

Ron gave him an understanding look. "That's tough. What's his first name, though? I promise I won't bang down his door and arrest him for fancying you."

"He doesn't fancy me," Harry laughed and hoped to Merlin that it wasn't true. "And his name… Sunny."

It was oddly fitting. Sunshine at the end of a tunnel. It was the sort of thing Hermione would read in books and smile about, so Ron smiled in return.

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

Now was the tough part. "What were you and Zabini arguing about?"

"It's this prostitution case," Ron sighed. His trust in Harry had been wrongfully restored when he thought Harry had opened up to him about a 'therapist'. "The one with Malfoy and my sister. It just keeps getting stranger and stranger! I saw Ginny today, in person, and she let me check for an Imperius curse…" There had been no Imperius curse, of course. "It's complicated."

"How so?" Harry asked, trying to sound the right level of interested in Ginny's safety and the right level of nonchalant about the probing questions.

Ron shook his head. "It seems like every time we get close, they know we're coming and they counter us. I'd suspect Zabini, but it doesn't make any sense. Unless…"

"Unless?"

"Unless he's protecting his ickle friend," Ron murmured, eyes wide with discovery. "That's it! I'll give him the wrong day of the raid, and he'll tip them off incorrectly. It's brilliant."

Harry's stomach sank in worry. "Oh."

"It helps me think when you're around," Ron told the man he wished could be his partner with a smile. "So, that's that. Are you coming to the Burrow tomorrow?"

Shit. Pre-Christmas family dinner. "Er, yeah."

"Good. I'll see you then?" Ron was feeling ecstatic that his friend had showed signs of moving on. Maybe it could be like old times again, and they would be the Golden Trio that he'd always wished they could reclaim.

"Yeah," Harry said before realizing he was using that word way too much in one sitting. Ron stood. "Where are you going now?"

"To schedule," he told Harry with a grin. "We'll nab the bastards this time. We have the clubs they frequent from muggle credit card history, the hotel they use, and have you seen_ this_?" Ron picked up a magazine from his desk that Harry found all-too familiar.

The ads on the back of Gay Wizard's Weekly were anything from rainbow jewelry shops to alcohol brands that were marketed towards the niche market. In between an ad for a leather shop and a rainbow cupcake bakery was the unmistakable slope of a back that Harry knew. A wisp of blonde hair trailed down the man's neck, though Harry couldn't see Draco's face. It was the ad that had lured him in.

"'Dating and massage service' my arse," Ron snorted.

XxXxX

Natasha Aspasia had never once allowed herself to get a wrinkle on her precious skin, and now was an awful time to start.

Horatio and she had been up all hours of the night arguing over the recent Auror visitation at their house, debating plans and strategies until their eyes couldn't stay open any longer. Fragments of the fight still floated around in her head.

'_It's your job to keep your workers safe!'_

'_Don't you think I know that?!'_

In short, she was getting worried. "Draco," she murmured, sifting through a recent tax return to try and clear her mind with thoughts of running her business rather than protecting it.

"Hm?" the blonde asked as he counted the galleons he'd brought in that week and gave Natasha her cut.

"Philip owled for you."

"Bugger Philip."

"That's what he asked for," she shrugged. "Why'd you cut him loose?"

"He fell in love with me," Draco laughed a little scornfully. It felt wrong to lead him on.

Natasha frowned. This wasn't going to soothe her worries at all, apparently. Her best-selling man was dropping clients left and right. "I can find you a new client," she offered. "I know the owner of the Romanian Quidditch Team has been looking for a little action."

"No thanks."

"You haven't even seen him yet," Natasha said anxiously. "If I were single… Anyway, he looks gorgeous. He's unmarried, childless, and runs a tight ship with his team. I'm sure you could ease that tension right out of him."

"I could," Draco nodded. "But no thanks." Above all, Draco Malfoy valued honesty, but… He wasn't sure how he could break this to Natasha.

The older woman smiled a little sadly. "I know that look on your face," Natasha told him as she pulled him into a tight embrace on the sofa in her clinic waiting room. "Tell me what's going on."

"I don't know what is," he answered in a quiet panic.

"You don't have to be upset, I don't mind if you don't take any new men."

"It's not that. At least I think it's not that," Draco tried.

Natasha rubbed his back in a way that conjured up a memory of Narcissa. He was just full of those this week. "What can I do to make you happy, Draco?"

Damn her for being such a good boss when Draco didn't know how to answer that question at all. "I don't know," he murmured. "I used to love this, Natasha. You know how I loved this."

"Oh, I know."

"I was the center of the universe, I could walk into any bar and point to any bloke and he would helplessly follow me to bed. I amassed a huge savings account in money I earned doing what I love, and I got to know so many men. They were fathers, and leaders, and entrepreneurs… They were all still men, though. It was calming," he explained, resting his head on her brown shoulder.

"That should mean I'm happy. It makes Gail happy in the same way it made me happy," Draco fumbled for an explanation. "I have money, the best job in the world, friends, and for a long while, it was fantastic." 'Was' being the operative word. "Maybe something's wrong with me."

Shaking her head, Natasha gave Draco a kiss on the head. "Oh, sweetheart, nothing's wrong with you."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked cheekily.

"Very sure," Natasha told him, for a moment seeing herself reflected in his doubtful eyes. "Have I ever told you the story of the glamorous working girl and the curious bell-boy?"

Draco's eyes widened. "No," he said with baited breath for the story of how a woman so successful would give up her career for marriage.

"Then hold tight," she said before closing her eyes and thinking of where to start. "Once upon a time," Natasha began. "There was a woman who reminds me of you. She fearlessly went wherever she pleased with whomever she pleased. After working menial jobs to finally pay for her ever-necessary surgery, her shiny new breasts and vagina made her the talk of the town."

"'Shiny'?" That was some adjective choice.

Natasha nodded. "They were shiny. Finally, she went to work in the industry that had always fascinated her. Galleons—not the sickles she was being paid as a lowly waitress or dishwasher—piled up in front of her whenever she met men in hotel rooms. She loved it, too. Those men were not always skilled, not always handsome, but they were kind and willing to learn. After all, this woman was no corner-girl. She only had the finest clientele for her surgically sculpted body."

Draco laughed, imagining a young Natasha strutting down the street and turning heads in a revealing dress. Men who despised all things LGBTQ probably fell head-over-heels for her. "And then?"

"Well, for about ten years it was like that. Men went and came—no pun intended—and all the while she used the hotel that you're using these days," Natasha said with a proud smile. "The hotel where the lonely bell-boy worked."

Finally, a love story.

"He was fresh out of an advertising muggle college, a muggleborn man with humble goals. When he saw the woman walk in and out with men, he watched in awe. She was beautiful, glamorous, and ever-so unattainable."

"And humble," Draco snorted before he got a pinch in the side.

"But one day, something happened to her that she didn't expect," Natasha continued. "She went up to the highest floor to meet a man who had abandoned his wife and was looking for a new fling." Suddenly, her voice was tense and… Upset? Draco had never heard that in her before. "When the woman entered the room, she immediately recognized the man. He didn't recognize her, though."

Draco couldn't hold back his question. "Who was he?"

"He was someone she knew a lifetime ago," Natasha murmured. "She knew him when she was Nathan, and he was Papa."

It felt like Draco had been punched in the stomach. That must have been horrible, and he couldn't even imagine what would happen if he ever found _his_ Daddy Dearest on his client list. "Nat, I'm so sorry—"

"Don't be," she said, returning to her sad smile. "Needless to say, the woman slammed the door and ran. Forgetting the elevator, she yanked off her heels and ran down thirteen flights of stairs. She would never knew what became of the man, but half of her didn't want to know."

"Then what?"

Natasha made a 'tsk, tsk' noise with her teeth before giving Draco a little bop on the nose. "So impatient," she grinned. "Then, she ran into the lobby and realized she didn't have anywhere to go. The woman ran her own business, and most of her friends were busy running their own, so she had nobody to call. It was only when she sat down in a lobby chair and tried her best not to cry that the chipper little bell-boy asked what was wrong."

"He looked ridiculous in that green velvet suit," Natasha laughed. "So ridiculous, that the woman just started to laugh. It must have been incredibly attractive, seeing a woman you'd always fantasized about having an emotional breakdown. But this bell-boy was a rather special one, and he stuck around. He got the woman a glass of water and sat in the chair next to her until she was calm enough to talk."

That was strangely heartwarming. Draco could imagine a young Horatio trying to take care of his future wife, even then.

"I won't bore you with the details of the talk, but it lasted until morning. They shared their life stories like a couple of idiots in a hotel lobby and put an admittedly foolish amount of trust into each other," Natasha said wistfully. "After that, the bell-boy would make a point to ask the woman how she was doing every time she came into the hotel to meet a new man. Sometimes, this horribly naughty woman would even pretend she had a client just to talk to him. He was sweet and could honestly barely afford her."

"I doubt he could afford her today," Draco smirked as a more genuine smile took its place on Natasha's lips.

"He probably couldn't," she grinned. "But as the summer came to a close, the man had been promised an advertising job in the fall. He obviously took it, but spent the rest of his free time being a bell-boy. That always confused the woman. Why would he do something he doesn't love? And then it came to her."

"Well, it came to her literally in an owl letter," Natasha clarified, recalling that day fondly. "The bell-boy-turned-firm-worker had made enough money for a full weekend with the woman."

Damn. That was a lot of money, and Draco knew it.

"She had never felt like this when getting ready for a client before. She packed her bags for a weekend with him in their hotel with mostly lingerie. The woman thought he only wanted sex after all this time."

"I'm guessing she was wrong," Draco said.

Natasha gave him a sly grin. "Only in a certain sense. The weekend was the most she'd ever laughed and the best she'd ever felt. Plus, he had a rather big cock which helped tip the scales in his favor." Draco snorted. It was so _Natasha_.

"After the weekend with him, things with other men that she previously enjoyed became routine and boring. Needless to say, she panicked. How could one man take her life and completely change her focus and her view?" she asked, remembering how frustrated she had been. "Then she realized something. A man didn't change her, she did. The woman had fallen regardless of how the bell-boy felt, and she didn't want to sleep with any other men but him. They were fun and it was still a great job for her friends, but she didn't want it anymore."

Draco swallowed back a question. He wanted to know why she was telling him this, but he didn't want to hear it out loud because he already knew why.

Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived To Ruin Draco Malfoy Entirely.

"What did she do?" he asked instead.

"She quit," Natasha told him. "It was a slow transition, but finally her client list dwindled down to one. After that, she made him stop paying and start calling her his girlfriend. They were able to live on the money she had made for years and even get married, but when she ran out, the woman turned to a new position in her old industry."

That was how she became a Madam, Draco realized. "Wow. I never knew."

With a small smirk, Natasha shrugged. "Knew what? It's just a story."


	10. Chapter 10: House Call

AN: Thanks for all of your positive feedback! You're lovely. I'm so busy lately, agh.

**Chapter 10: House Call**

It was extremely rare for Draco to make house calls, but there he was.

Harry's letter had disturbed him enough to send Draco back to tracing the address. It shouldn't have surprised him that Harry wasn't actually sending the owls from the Ministry and that he was still cooped up in Grimmauld Place, but the white lie made Draco more suspicious than ever.

Their last meeting had seemed off. Harry was worried, paranoid, and kept looking towards the door. Almost like he expected Lord Voldemort himself to appear there and hex them senseless.

And then, this letter cancelling the next appointment.

_Sunny,_

_I'm sorry, but I can't do this. Stay away from the hotel, please. Tell everyone to._

_-Holden_

It was classic paranoia. Draco had gotten some research done at a muggle library about PTSD and among that, other anxiety disorders. He was convinced that this cancellation was caused by it, among other things. Draco's ventures into the realm of psychology had opened his eyes to enough dysfunctions that he felt capable of diagnosing some of his friends. Pansy with a narcissistic personality, Blaise with a superiority complex, and Theo... Hm. Well there was the obvious 'daddy issues' label, but there had to be something about being attracted to little Gryffindor twinks.

The one diagnosis Draco had purposely done everything to avoid was his own. He'd had enough revelations for one week.

Draco knocked on the door as loudly as he could, just in case Harry was asleep or too depressed to answer the damned thing. He tried the doorbell just in case.

Covered in a sea of blankets and his own thoughts, Harry heard the knocks. Who the hell would want to visit him? Maybe it was Ron, trying to ask about 'Sunny the Therapist'. That was such a joke. Ron would probably keep asking questions and Harry would have to make something up. Or, he could tell the truth. Sunny wasn't interested in relationships, let alone with crazy war veterans.

'Crazy'. There was that word again. It made him angry and ashamed, mostly because he thought it to be true.

"Harry!" a muffled voice yelled when the knocks returned.

"Fuck off!" Harry said without even knowing who it was. He buried his head under a nearby pillow to try and drown it out.

"Harry, open up," the voice said impatiently.

"That's a loaded request!" Harry called back.

Then, he immediately realized the laugh that followed. "Quit being an arse and open the door," Draco demanded.

Now, that was a dilemma. The man he was falling for was on his doorstep while Harry was busy trying to get over him. Things never seemed to work out in Harry's love life, but this was mental.

"No," he said a little dejectedly. "Please, just go away."

"Are you sick?"

"What does it matter? Just go."

Draco sighed, crossing his arms. "Let me in so I can stop yelling!"

"Please, just _go_!" That morning Harry had woken up feeling defeated already. He was tired, miserable, and busy protecting the prat he was telling to bugger off.

The silence after Harry said that was unnerving, and it launched him back into his cycle of guilt.

"Draco?"

"Yes?" Draco asked, audibly colder.

Harry wrestled with the pain in his back to sit up. He'd been lying there all morning and felt like he'd taken one of hell of a beating. Not the good kind, either. "I'm sorry."

Out in the pre-Christmas cold, Draco let out a sigh that he could actually see. The white wisp floated away entirely before Draco formulated his response. "Don't be, okay?" He wasn't supposed to be the one his clients apologized to. He wasn't their wife, or their kids, or their boyfriend. After that bloody bell-boy story, Draco had dangerously overstepped his boundaries.

He was hired help. Paid to show up and paid to leave.

"I'll leave," Draco nodded. He felt like an idiot. Of course Potter was just like his other clients. No matter how many books he read, Draco would never really be his therapist. He'd be his Dom, his whore, and by no means anything more.

"No!" Harry shouted out suddenly. The thought of turning Draco away had his heartstrings in knots. "Erm, I wasn't sorry because I was saying goodbye. I'm just… I'm an arse, okay? Come in. Please."

Draco frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Harry said, proving it by pushing past the muscle fatigue to go open the door.

Draco's frown was only worsened when he saw the state Harry was in. His eyes looked sunken in without his glasses, and he had a slump like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. When Harry understood the look of horror on Draco's face, he took a step back.

"Uhm. Come in," he mumbled, careful to shut the door behind Draco to check that nobody had seen him enter.

The 'are you okay?' question seemed stupid. "What can I do?" Draco asked, disturbed by how nonplussed he was at the idea of not getting paid for his services. That, and he knew Harry would feel guilty enough to throw money at him just for showing up. The money wasn't the reason he came, though.

"I don't know," Harry murmured, on the edge of something terrible.

Draco guided him by the shoulders to help him sit back down. The poor thing looked close to fainting.

"I don't know," he repeated. "It's just—Ron, he's getting closer to you and… I'm not even worried about me! I am—" he took a breath, "—I am worried about you."

Draco was seconds away from telling him not to be when Harry cut him off.

"No," Harry panted, his heart beating a million miles an hour. "I can't _not_ be worried about you, so please stop. Please, just _stop_. You're going to get caught, and Ron isn't going to stop, and I'm worried! All I ever am is worried and it's usually for nothing, but this time it's real!"

"Harry, calm down," Draco said, rubbing his back and grabbing his hand. Harry looked like he was hyperventilating and all Draco could do was watch.

"Draco, you have to be safe and you have to be okay, and I know you don't want to stop and that I can't make you… Fuck! I can't make anything happen, ever! I'm useless and all I was good for was killing one man—"

"Panic attack," Draco said suddenly when he remembered his reading.

"What?"

"Breathe, Harry. Put your head between your knees and I'll count."

"_What_?"

Tired of explaining, Draco positioned the man on the couch so that his feet were flat on the floor and his legs spread far enough so that Draco could shove Harry's head down. "Breathe with me," Draco told him calmly. "Breathe in one, two, three, four…. That's it, now breathe out. One, two three, four."

Harry's teeth were chattering so hard that his breathing sounded like drum music.

"One, two, three, four…"

Harry felt his lungs fill with another punch of pain. The front of his head rested on his knees, and Harry feared that if he moved, his skull would just open up and let everything slide away.

"Harry, I'm right here," Draco assured him. "You're doing so well. Let it out, breathe out. One, two, three, four."

Re-learning how to breathe took longer than Harry expected. By the time the attack had ended, he felt exhausted all over again. The sort of exhausted you get after a huge crying fit. He wanted to show Draco how grateful he was, how much that support meant—but Harry couldn't get any more attached to the man than he always was.

Draco helped him sit back up. "Get under the blankets, you're freezing." Harry's feet were like blocks of ice when they swung up to lie back down. "I'm going to make you some food."

"No," Harry murmured softly. "You can't."

Draco turned around and raised an eyebrow. "Why not?" He certainly wasn't opposed to going grocery shopping for something better than whatever looked like a stale crumble-cake on Harry's kitchen table. Draco's compulsion to clean flared up as well.

Harry shook his head and tried to put it all into words. "You can't, Draco. You can't, you can't…"

"There's nothing to worry about, Harry. I sent the message to all the people at the hotel, I knew Weasley would try and strike soon… We left someone there, too, to make sure all our rooms go to waste. As far as the Head Auror knows, Pansy Parkinson is an advertising mogul." Pansy had almost squealed with delight when Gail filled her in on their brilliant plan.

"It's not that," he murmured.

"Then what is it?" Draco asked as a tinge of exhaustion crept into his voice.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Harry asked, sitting up so he could look Draco in the eye.

A knot formed in Draco's stomach. "What? I'm nice to you because… You know. I like you." The knot wound even tighter when Harry sat up again looking determined.

Harry had kept him safe from Ron, and now it was time to protect him even further. Draco loved his job, loved his life, and Harry couldn't be a weight that would drag him down. Even if he ever, ever came anywhere near close to accepting Draco's job and being his boyfriend, Harry would be nothing but trouble.

At the right angle, Harry could see his reflection in the glass coffee table that Molly had given him when he moved in. It was like every flaw within him was marring his face, making him as ugly as he felt inside.

Harry was jealous. He'd never been able to deal with Draco's profession. Harry was damaged. He'd probably never recover from the war. Harry was angry. He'd hurt Ron and Hermione with that anger, and countless others. Harry was bad for Draco, and he couldn't ruin the one person from Hogwarts who actually found a happy life.

"Harry?" Draco asked again. "Talk to me. You live in your head too much, and I'm a pretty good listener."

"You're a good everything!" Harry responded, frustrated. He hadn't meant to say that out loud, but he did. "Merlin, Draco, you're gorgeous, smart, funny, and you make me feel like I could say absolutely anything to you without being afraid! You're fantastic in bed, and it's _just not fair_."

Draco didn't know whether to feel flattered or confused, so he felt both. "And you want me to start being the horrible prick I used to be?"

"Yes," he said with a horrible laugh. "That would be ace."

"You're a nutter. Lay back down, I'm making you food."

"No, not until you say something awful and make me hate you again," Harry pouted, a little hysterical from the after-effects of the panic attack and the rush he got from telling the truth. It was so ridiculous that it made him excited.

Draco laughed. While he was sure he still had that sniveling, mudblood-hating boy hidden in a dark corner of his psyche, he didn't want to call him back. "Hm. A comment on your Hogwarts house?"

"Something meaner. Come on, where's the prick I knew?"

"Gone," Draco shrugged as he walked back into the kitchen to keep on his plan of staying in the damned house at all costs.

"I'm being serious!" Harry yelled to him, trying to hide his smile. Maybe if they kept joking around, they would be in a state of limbo that could last for centuries without ever facing the harsh light of day.

"Shut your stupid mug, half-breed," he attempted before bursting into laughter. "I can't do it. Even that sounded sad." Draco had been going for a snarl and wound up letting out more of a mewl.

Harry shook his head. He was doomed, he really was. "Stop being nice and looking so damn good when you laugh!"

"Sorry, love, it's a curse."

"And don't call me that," he growled. Draco couldn't play with words like that when Harry knew he didn't mean them.

"Hm, you have some of the ingredients for a soup I like," Draco said as he rummaged through kitchen drawers full of stale or rotting food. Potter was living in filth. "I'll make you some biscuits to go along with it; the kind you can dunk in the soup."

Harry shook his head a little miserably. He was trapped. Draco Malfoy was taking care of his achy limbs with bloody soup and Harry was helpless to his charms and the care he was getting. "You need to stop being so nice," he sighed again. Harry could tell that this was a fight he was going to lose. Their first fight, and it was over how good of a not-boyfriend Draco was being.

"Hush up."

"It's my house."

"It's my soup."

"It's my kitchen."

"Shut up," Draco muttered, shaking his head.

For once, Harry listened.

Yet even though he did, Harry wouldn't get a wink of sleep that night. He was the one dragging Draco down, and he was letting himself do it. For that, Harry loathed himself more than he already had—which he had originally thought impossible.

Harry was weak, exhausted, and needed someone to take care of him. Draco had become that caregiver, but whether it was for money or sentiment was a mystery to Harry. He wished he could peek into Draco's mind and see if anything he felt besides lust was reciprocated; anything at all.

But alas, Harry Potter was no omniscient narrator. Draco's behavior was hard to see through and decode, and it was terrifying how much of him now hinged on that behavior. Draco was a map he couldn't read while Harry had become an open book to him, and at the end of the night he scheduled their appointment with his stomach in a knot of guilt.

More than anything, he wanted to let that guilt go.

Harry wanted to live like Draco did. Follow whatever fancy came his way, do what he loved, and live utterly without shame.

That's what Harry envied most about Draco; he was shameless. Harry would accidentally say a rude quip to a friend and worry about it for months, but Draco would openly laugh both at and with his friends.

Mind swarming with questions, Harry fell asleep just as the clock chimed midnight. Three days until Christmas.

XxXxX

Ron hadn't felt this alive in a long while. With a squadron of Aurors behind him, he banged on the door of the hotel room where some woman named 'Gail' bought the room to entertain a guest.

"Auror Department!" Ron yelled, barging in upon finding the door to be open. He'd never expected Natasha's workers to be careless.

After his officers cleared the living room, bathroom, and the small kitchen unit, Ronald Billius Weasley was unprepared for what awaited him in the bedroom.

Pansy was clad only in a sheer chiffon bath robe, her purple one, and consequently her favorite one. After having kissed Ginny goodbye and told that Weaselette she owed her, Pansy had stretched out across the bed and begun to eat the plate of strawberries she had ordered from room service. It made her feel like a woman in one of those noir films, the kind she had always wanted to be.

"Ronald," Pansy perked up when she saw him, putting down a half-eaten strawberry. The men and women of the Auror force gathered behind Ron, looking confused as ever. "What brings you and the whole Ministry here?"

Parkinson was in on this? Oh, Ron couldn't wait to tell Hermione about this. "We're here to break up your little game," he told her, keeping his wand pointed at her.

"What game?" she asked innocently as she stood, her dark nipples showing through the thin fabric.

"Prostitution, Parkinson. Look it up."

"Oh," Pansy grinned as if that were entirely new information and that she hadn't been with a prostitute moments earlier. "You think I'm a lady of the evening? Well, if I was, you couldn't afford me."

Ron gave her a disgusted look. "I'm not interested."

"Ah, right, you're breeding with Granger. Anyway, you can send your reinforcements away. I'm not armed or dangerous, and I would like to see how Minister Kingsley would cover up a band of Aurors attacking a defenseless woman in her negligee."

Parkinson was far from defenseless, but she had a point. With a nod, Ron sent the rest of the Aurors to go search the rest of the hotel. "I'm putting you under arrest."

"Hardly," Pansy scowled. "Where's your probable cause? I'm going to be staying right here until you can find anything incriminating within my hotel room. If anything, the creeping Auror staring at my tits should be the one under arrest."

"I am not staring at your tits!" Ron shouted out, scandalized that she would suggest that.

"Who's going to believe you?" Pansy asked as she stood to saunter her way over to the big, bag Head Auror. She stopped in front of him and made her best pitiful face. "Your honor, Mr. Weasley told me that if I didn't take my nightgown off, then he would take me in. And then—" she faked a little sniffle of sorrow. "—He touched me."

Ron nearly dropped his wand he was so thrown off-base. Apparently, time couldn't change Pansy's manipulative and single-minded ways. "I would never! I'm married, and I have a _daughter_."

"Oh, I don't doubt your actual chivalry," she murmured as she got close enough to adjust his collar, her warm breath ghosting over his neck. "But you shouldn't doubt my ability to put on a good show. Stay away from this case, Weasel."

"I won't," he protested, standing his ground in spite of the dangerous proximity of Parkinson.

She traced a lacquered fingernail down the side of his cheek. "What's got you so involved, hm?" Pansy asked, watching him flinch away from her touch.

"My sister," Ron gritted out. "Why is she involved in this?"

"I cannot answer for your sister," Pansy shrugged. But maybe if she could charm and bed the sister, then the brother wasn't too far off… "What will it take for this to go away, hm?"

Ron narrowed his eyes. "People are breaking the_ law_."

"I asked," Pansy huffed taking another step closer to him. "What will it take to make this go away? Money? Women?"

"Are you trying to bribe an Auror? That is a serious—"

"_Who will believe you_?" Pansy asked again as she cornered Ron up against the wall. "Sure, your Head Auror reputation gets you free points on believability, but everyone knows what you're capable of. You were in a war. You've been with one woman your whole life, and now you're weighed down with kids. All I have to do is plant the seed of doubt, and I won't even need your seed on me."

Recoiling at the thought, Ron raised his wand again. "You can't make this go away, Parkinson. So put away your act, put away your money, and for fuck's sake, put away your tits."

Pansy walked back to her bed, frowning. This had gone over much better in her head. In her head, Ron Weasley had also shagged her senseless, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen. Pity, she could have crossed off 'siblings' on her bucket list of shagging.

"Leave it alone, Weasley," she sighed, running a hand through her hair. She was above begging, but not above a little pathetic persuasion. "You don't know how many peoples' lives you would be ruining by doing this. They're good people. Quit looking at me like that, I'm not one of them." Mostly because she wasn't a good person.

"Then what the hell are you?" he asked, still shaken up from the way Parkinson had weaponized her sexuality.

"Auror Weasley!"

Ron turned around to see who was calling him. It was Auror Danby, looking rather sullen with her big blue eyes. "Did you find anything?" Ron sure hoped they had.

Danby shook her head. "The whole place cleared out. Parkinson seems to be the only one on this floor," she murmured, giving Pansy a look that could kill.

Tired of the judgment she was receiving at the hand of a mousy little law enforcer, Pansy began to gather her things to leave. "You would be ruining lives," she repeated. "This isn't black and white like you think it is."

"I am not here to talk morals," Ron told her firmly. "I'm here to do my job."

"To protect and serve," Pansy said fondly as she threw a coat on over her exposed flesh. "Who are you protecting, Weasley? Your sister is safe at her flat right now if you really want to go see her." After Ron's last 'talk' with Ginny, she had practically thrown him out of that flat.

"It's not just her. Nobody should have to make a living like this. It's sick and it's demeaning," he muttered.

Pansy gave him a lingering glance before walking towards the fireplace. If no handcuffs were on her, she wouldn't be going anywhere for questioning. "I thought we weren't talking morals," she said airily, giving him one last hard glance before floo-ing away.

XxXxX

Harry had to leave the Burrow and Weasley pre-Christmas dinner behind—Ginny yelling, Ron demanding answers, Molly begging for peace—and for a moment he wished he was a smoker, or had some kind of relief like he always saw people smoking have.

Ron had that same pained look on his face as when he went to Fred's funeral. It had to be the saddest thing in the world for Harry to watch, since it was the sort of face that knew it had to accept what was happening but was distraught nonetheless. At least this time, Harry hadn't been the one to cause it.

It was strange to think about his old girlfriend hooking, but Harry would have been a hypocrite of the highest degree to disapprove of it. Maybe she had a favorite customer, or a client who was falling for her. Harry hoped that at least she was happy.

Sadly, thoughts of Ginny brought Harry back to thoughts of Draco, and when Harry had thoughts of Draco, they went on for years.

Draco and his soft skin. Draco and his easy laugh. Draco and his charm that made Harry so selfishly stay with him. Draco and his stormy eyes that flashed with lightning when he tied Harry down and told him what a bad boy he'd been.

The images of him talking and shagging Harry mixed around in Harry's mind until all his thoughts were a soup of pale skin, toned muscles, and wispy blonde eyelashes. When the thought of Draco doing anything sexual came up, that just added to the brew.

"I'm getting some fresh air!" Ginny repeated as she stamped out of the Burrow without a coat or cloak on. With a slam of the door, Harry was left alone with her in the dark. "Oh. I didn't realize you were out here."

"Sorry," Harry said lamely.

"No," she sighed, murmuring a warming charm and walking to stand next to him and look out at the barren fields. "You should be commended for dealing with this nonsense and not being obligated to through blood relations."

Harry shrugged. "I like your family." They were just worried. Thankfully it was a vague sort of worry, since Ron hadn't the heart to tell Molly and Arthur what he suspected was going on with Ginny.

"You can have them."

Shifting his weight from his left foot to his right became Harry's next main focus. While he had the sense to put on some protective layers against the chill, his arms were still crossed tightly over his chest. News stations were saying they'd have a white Christmas soon enough.

"So," Ginny cleared her throat before tucking a strand of apricot hair behind her ear. Exes were supposed to catch up, right? "What've you been into lately?"

With his focus still on the shift of his shoes, Harry blurted something rather regrettable out. "Draco Malfoy."

If Ginny was shocked, she was hiding it very well. "He's one fine-looking bloke. If Draco wasn't gay, well, let's just say I'd been in your position."

Harry's shock at that, however, was obvious. "So, you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes," she laughed. "You're talking about our scandalous careers." There it was, that same shameless smile Draco had.

"Wow," he murmured, astonished by all of it. Just years ago, he and that woman were fighting a war together. Ginny had been in love with him, and Harry in love with the idea of her. He couldn't even believe that they had ended up where they had.

"Draco never refers to his clients by names when he tells me about them," Ginny assured him just in case Harry thought that his whore was running his mouth. "But I knew it was you the second he described you. Lanky, glasses, a complete emotional wreck."

"Gee, thanks."

Ginny shrugged. "He says you're fantastic in bed, if that helps."

"It might," Harry said, skin thrumming with the sheer insanity of it all.

For a long moment, Ginny seemed to have faded back into her thoughts. Harry would have wished again for a mind-reading ability, but he was occupied with the fact that Draco Malfoy thought he was fantastic in bed. _Fantastic_.

"I'm not sure," Ginny said slowly. "If I should be telling him not to break your heart, or if I should be telling you not to break his."

Harry swallowed uncomfortably. Did that mean Draco really did seem as interested in Harry as Harry was in him? No, no, she had to be kidding. "Erm. I never thought this was about hearts. Other organs come to mind, and on top of that, the organs of many other men he is doing the same thing with."

For the time being, Ginny would hold back the information on the clients that Draco was dropping left and right. "Harry," she said, turning to him and smoothing down his rumpled hair in the cold. "Just… Be careful, okay?" Something in her eyes was straining to tell Harry more.

"Yeah," he nodded a little absently. "When aren't I?"

"Prat," Ginny laughed as she gave him a punch in the arm. She was alarmed to find how thin Harry's muscles had become when her knuckles corrected right with bone. "Anyway," she recovered. "Let's go back inside. Mum will start thinking we've gotten back together or something."

"Oh, anything but that."


	11. Chapter 11: Viking Funeral

AN: This one is for Supreet because she's totally moving to New York for me. Definitely. It has been decided.

Thanks for the reviews, and I love how certain people are leaving negative ones! There's nothing better than a good literary discussion. Some of you are talking about how you hate Ginny and Draco, and some of you are talking about how you love them. Good. I hate fics where every character is likable and sensible, because that doesn't at all mirror the real world.

**Chapter 11: Viking Funeral**

Christmas Eve for Dudley Dursley had been a dream when he was a child. Presents stacked in shimmering wrapping paper from wall-to-wall, and two doting parents to capture every moment of bliss on camera for the rest of forever. They would cherish those photos, the ones where Harry was shoved out of frame and hidden away in his cupboard under the stairs.

It hadn't become Harry's favorite holiday until he spent it with the Weasleys, and that dinner had been especially tense and slightly depressing.

So, Harry was left to thumb through the letters he and Draco had exchanged over the past month. It didn't feel like a month.

_Holden,_

_Happy Christmas. You may not find gifts in your stockings tomorrow, though. A little birdy told me that you've been a naughty boy._

_-Sunny_

_Sunny,_

_Did you honestly just turn the innocence of Santa Claus and the spirit of giving into an innuendo?_

_-Holden_

_Holden,_

_Why, yes I did. If I recall correctly, you're full of the giving spirit. Receiving, as well._

_-Sunny_

_Sunny,_

_Are you spending the holiday with anyone? Sorry to interrupt your fantastic display of debaucherous wordplay, but I'm wondering._

_-Holden_

_Holden,_

_Pansy is busy snogging people under different sprigs of mistletoe, Theo and Colin are doing something disgusting and couple-y that I have once walked in on before (I really did not expect Creevey to be into such adventurous things, let me tell you), and Blaise is on some 'emergency Auror expedition'. So, no. I'm spending Christmas with a box of chocolates and an HBO marathon._

_-Sunny_

_Sunny,_

_I love HBO._

_-Holden_

Of course Harry liked premium television where men could freely swing their cocks around without the threat of censorship. That was why Draco had brought it up. Grabbing the unopened box of chocolates Draco may or may not have implied he was eating all alone (Draco Malfoy never ate chocolate alone), he took the floo to Harry's house. No need to apparate to the chilly outdoors, Harry had let the wards down for him, specifically. It made Draco's stomach feel warm.

Harry lit up like a Christmas tree. "Hey," he said, patting the side of his busted-up couch so that Draco could have a seat. "That was fast."

"It's pathetic to spend holidays alone," Draco shrugged off before taking his proper seat next to Harry and wrapping an arm around him.

Possibly the only more pathetic thing was spending holidays with people who had to pay you for sex, but Harry kept that to himself. Harry clicked the television on and let it illuminate the room in addition to the Christmas lights.

A lively and nearly-nameless show of the usual HBO drama, that both of them happened to of course love, played in the background. "Buttermilk chocolates?" Draco offered after finally opening the present-shaped package.

"Is this my Christmas gift?"

"Eat it and don't ask questions," Draco laughed. Not that he had actually gotten Harry a Christmas gift; he totally didn't do that.

Harry rolled his eyes and did as he was told. When he listened to Draco's instructions, it didn't matter how stupid and out of control his life was. His bones didn't hurt and it was easier to swallow the truth.

The chocolate was rich and melted as soon as it touched his tongue. A quiet moan escaped his mouth, and Draco had to hold back a laugh. "You're so easy," he teased.

"So you're always telling me," Harry shrugged. "Maybe I just want it all the time."

Draco grinned, enjoying Harry's refutation being the description of the very thing Draco was so blamelessly accusing him of. "All the time?" he asked, curious.

The habit of blushing had left Harry at the beginning of their appointments, but it seemed to be returning with vengeance. "Well," Harry said as he shifted about the cushions. "Since my Master said I can't touch myself anymore, I've been thinking about him. A lot."

"Good." Draco liked to see his pet behaving, so he rewarded him by cupping Harry's cheek and giving him a sweet kiss.

Happily, Harry squirmed up to meet his lips and anchor an arm around Draco. "Thank you," he murmured between the soft smacking sounds that Harry used to hate when he heard Ron and Hermione doing it in 'eighth' year under a Muffliato charm that needed serious improvement. Well, now Harry had someone to do it with, too.

No charm was needed when Draco wrestled him up onto his lap, spreading Harry's legs wide open so that his feet rested on opposite sides of Draco's thighs. "I imagine you want it now," Draco drawled, his fingers fitting in light and fleeting touches.

Harry nodded.

"Tell me why you deserve it. What makes you think a naughty thing like you has any right to be with someone like me?"

The roleplay struck a deep and painful vein inside of Harry. "I do," he insisted as he tried to cover Draco's neck in kisses. "I do, Sir. I can be good to you. I'll do anything you want; I can make you laugh, I can make you come."

Even Draco was a little surprised by that. "Can you?" Draco asked quietly. He knew that Harry could, but still.

"Yes," Harry told him eagerly, eyes wide behind their frames. "I can, I really can. You have to trust me on that, Sir. Trust that I would do anything to make you happy."

"I do trust you," Draco murmured. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course," he said as if it were an indisputable fact. That made a little lump form in Draco's throat that kept him talking in spite of his better instincts. _Keep the domination physical, keep it controlled, you're nobody's boyfriend… _"Do you think I would have let you see me in a skirt if I didn't?"

"I quite like the sight of you in a skirt."

"I quite like you," Harry countered, an unmistakable fire in his stomach.

"You do?" Draco asked again, when he was definitely not shaking.

Harry nodded a little nervously. "Yeah, I kind of really do. We're—uh, talking about the same thing, right?"

"Harry," he murmured softly, phasing entirely out of whatever debaucherous scene that the evening could have gone into. For once, Draco needed to use his words.

Desperately, Harry tried to read his face for an answer. "You don't feel the same way," Harry concluded, crumbling in the saddest heap Draco had ever seen.

"No," Draco stopped him, keeping Harry in his lap so that he couldn't run away like he looked he wanted to. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?" Harry asked, a little delirious. "Because, Merlin, from the first moment I met you— or, well, re-met you—I felt like I could fucking hope for something. And I know you have your job, and I know you love it, and—"

"Harry," Draco interrupted and tried to ignore the fact that he most certainly was shaking. "I don't know what this is, or why it's happening, but please hear me out."

The Gryffindor nodded, still sitting in Draco's lap like he bloody belonged there.

"I," Draco began, shaken to his core. "Have no other skill set. I have no parents to support me, and I've never even had an internship before this. Anywhere. Ever."

"That's fine—" Harry interrupted before stopping himself. He had promised to hear Draco out.

After a deep breath, Draco continued. "It's not fine. It's not fine because when I run out of the money I've been saving to keep up with rent and my expensive tastes, I'm going to be broke. And you—you kind, caring son of a bitch—will tell me that it's fine, and that I can live with you." Harry was actually seconds away from proposing that. "But I can't live with you."

"Why not?" he asked. Everything had been going sort of well up until that. "You could get a job, you're smart—"

"I'm clever," Draco corrected, shaking his head. "I'm witty, but I'm not smart. I'm a prostitute. I use my body to make my money, and my brains only work to keep men in their fantasies. I might have been smart in school, but I'm not anymore." Even when Draco had sat down with Theo to talk things out, this hadn't come up. It scared him how honest he could be with Harry, and that only added to his mountain of fear surrounding thoughts of Harry and commitment and _quitting his damn job_.

Harry shook his head. "No, that's not true. You'd be good at lots of things." How could someone so great be so oblivious to how great they really were?

Maybe the job had affected him. "I can't do anything else," Draco whispered, terrified. "I'm just a whore."

Climbing out of Draco's lap, Harry tried to reach eye-level with the other man. "No, that's not true. Don't say that. You're so much more, and there's nothing wrong with what you do. Nothing! Do you hear me? Bugger the Aurors, and bugger whatever voice in your head is telling you that you're not good enough."

"You say that like it's easy," Draco laughed, standing as the television blasted a club-scene where the main character was doing something rather inadvisable. "You can't even do that." Shit, shit. He needed to shut up before he said something even more stupid.

Harry wasn't even as hurt by that as he probably should have been. It was the truth. "I know, Draco," he pleaded. "And that's why we can do it together, we can help each other. It sound stupid, believe me, I know it. It sounds like the shit that straight people say to each other before the credits roll in a movie or whatever, but it's _true_!"

A hysterical little laugh escaped Draco. "Is there a single moment that you can't relate back to some show you've watched?"

"No, I don't think so," Harry admitted. "Because I barely even left this house before you. I had my little worlds in my screens all over my stupid little house, but I didn't have _you_. Do you want me to recite the entire script of season one for 30 Rock? Because, goddammit, _I can_!"

"I don't doubt that," Draco laughed on the verge of a yell. "It's a fantastic show!"

Harry nodded frantically. "Tina Fey is even funnier than she was on Saturday Night Live!"

"How did we get to this?" Draco demanded, still laughing.

"Well," Harry started, feeling about as crazy as the papers always said he was. "I saw the ad in the back of a magazine for an escort service and thought: 'Wow, I'm terribly lonely and depressed. May as well pay for a shag and freak out when he enters the room'."

At that, Draco couldn't even hold back his laughter. "Oh, _Salazar!_ You looked like you wanted to cry when I first saw you. Do you have any idea how hard I had to try to stay calm?"

"At least you were calm!" Harry pointed out. "I got the hotel room an _hour _early. I almost left five times!"

Draco was almost out of breath he was laughing so hard. "You wouldn't even shag me!" he sputtered out between laughs.

"Oh, Merlin. I was a mess. I am a mess," Harry said in one mighty exhale, slumping down onto his couch.

"You're a mess and I'm a whore."

The clatter of keys hitting the ground shattered the suspended reality that Harry and Draco had spun themselves into. Amidst their spiraling and panic, Harry had forgotten about the keys that he had given Ron and Hermione in case of an emergency.

"You weren't answering the door," Ron said, eerily calm. His black Auror robes hung from his frame like he had been returned to boyhood, and hadn't quite grown into the role of Head Auror yet.

Harry was screwed ten ways over no matter what he did, so mirrored that calm in a surprising burst of self-control. "Hermione's going to be cross with you. You're missing Christmas Eve."

Draco really had to hold his laughter in on that one. He could imagine so vividly a raging Granger (now Weasley) chastising both Ron and Harry for their ruining the holidays for her and the kid. _What was the kid's name again? Something with an 'R'… Ronhilda?_

Ron's eyes flicked to the barely-contained blonde. "I knew you were lying," he said, voice climbing. "And now I have proof. You're going away for this, Malfoy."

"And what about me?" Harry cut in, looking his old friend dead in the eyes. There had been hope of them talking things through, of rekindling the one of the greatest friendships that the wizarding world had ever seen. But now, all he could see was contempt. "You and I both know that Johns get harsher sentences."

"Harry," Ron said slowly. "Don't say anything more that could incriminate yourself. This would _ruin_ you." It hadn't mattered that Harry had lied, Ron still wanted him to be a free man. Nothing was sadder to him than the thought of arresting the boy on the Hogwarts Express who had shown him his lightning bolt scar.

Oddly enough, the phrasing struck a chord with Harry. "_Ruin_ me? Ron, if you think this is my ruin then you're a couple years off. I'll plead guilty, the public will laugh and hate me more than they do, and I'll be okay." Harry had thought about it. Going to jail for Draco was mad, but he wouldn't run from the law. He was too tired of running.

"Stop, Harry, please," Ron begged through gritted teeth. "I'm just here for Malfoy, and we can talk about this later. You've been through a lot, and I can't be responsible for any more of your suffering." He took a deep breath. "I got into Madam Natasha's office. We found receipts and messages between the hookers and their clients, and Malfoy here is in rather high demand. We've found dozens of letters asking for him, wondering where he went. He'll leave you like he left them, and I can't watch that happen."

Harry shook his head, puzzled. That had to be a lie that Ron had conjured up. Draco loved his clients in his own strange way; he wouldn't just drop them. "You're wrong. How did you even get into her office?"

Of all the things Ron had prepared to answer, that wasn't one of them. "It doesn't matter," he told Harry.

"Yes, it does," Harry growled back, taking a step forward. He could feel his blood boil beneath his skin. "Did you have a warrant? The whole bloody nine yards like we learned in the Academy?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you!" Ron roared back. "In this past week my sister has stopped talking to me, I have been threatened by Pansy fucking Parkinson, and I've found out my best mate has been sleeping around with a Death Eater!"

Harry's face went red. "He's not a Death Eater! You have no idea what he had to go through during the war!" The long talks in candlelight while they held hands had opened up both of their stories, Draco and Harry, the ones who never wanted to be chosen. Hearing Ron call him that name was like a torch to the memory.

"I'm glad you have a therapist," Ron spat back. Harry sounded like a madman.

Harry shook his head in a laugh that reminded him of Draco's. "I don't have a therapist! I have Draco." When Harry turned around to reference the man who he believed to be standing behind him, all that was left was the settling of dust. "He apparated away," Harry whispered to himself, horror-stricken.

"And he left you," Ron reinforced, wondering where the first place he would hang the wanted posters would be. Maybe he'd pay a visit to Malfoy Manor.

As upset as Harry was, he had to push on. Draco or no Draco, he wasn't going down without a fight. Ironically enough, that was something that Draco had taught him. "It doesn't matter. You broke into Natasha's office!"

Ron flipped through all the excuses he had used when prying the window open._ I had to level the playing field, I would have never caught them otherwise, I am the law, I can do this_… "Fine, then," Ron said, returning to his calm voice. The swell of rage inside him had been tamed into repression through years of Auror classes. "Maybe I can't use the letters I found there as evidence, but I can use this place. I have probable cause and a key to Grimmauld Place. You've practically admitted the crime, so I have the right to search your house for evidence. Zabini, come here."

"I thought you said you didn't want to hurt me," Harry countered unsteadily, watching a reluctant Blaise come through the door with a pair of handcuffs. The only time he had ever been unhappy to see a Slytherin with handcuffs, and it had to be at a time like this.

Clenching his teeth together, Ron nodded. "I don't want to see you hurt, Harry. Maybe a few years away will do you some good. You really need help, and therapy from a professional. Malfoy's messed with your mind, and I won't see you go to jail for it. I'll have you transferred somewhere for that."

The metal cuffs clasped around his wrists when Blaise roughly pushed his hands behind his back. He had disarmed Harry so quickly that it would have made his old Auror Academy teacher go red with embarrassment. "I won't go," Harry told him, on the verge of screaming. "I'm not crazy!"

"You're not," Ron said gently. "Your mind is just… Weak right now. Malfoy took advantage of that."

"No," he repeated again and again as Blaise and Ron escorted him out of the decrepit house. "No! I won't go, I won't go!" The winter chill barely even affected Harry when they got outside. He was too angry to feel anything else.

Ron ground his teeth together even harder. Harry would make a scene, prompt muggles to look outside at what was happening… "I'm going to the Ministry to double-check the warrant," he told Blaise, unable to look at a broken-down Harry. "We're not letting them get away on technicalities. _Stay here_."

"Yes, sir," Blaise said in a bitterly obedient voice, never looking Ron once in the eye.

With that, Ron apparated off on his own, leaving Harry to struggle against Zabini's iron grip. "Let me go! I thought you were Draco's _friend_!" he yelled.

"Potter," Blaise struggled, trying to get a better grasp on him.

"Natasha will get the both of you for the breaking-and-entering. The law broke the fucking law!" Harry roared.

"_Potter_."

"You're not objective," Harry continued to rant. "The both of you are just as bad as everyone else. It's the blind leading the blind!"

"Potter, stay fucking still," Blaise grumbled. "I can't get the key out of my pocket when you're busy waking up half of the neighborhood."

Harry whipped his head around to see what Blaise was doing. Before he even got a good look, the handcuffs had fallen off of him. "Oh."

"'Oh' is right. You're the blind one, four-eyes," Blaise scoffed. He really never did appreciate being called names. "Now stop staring at me like a fucking idiot and stun me."

"What?"

Blaise handed over his wand. "Petrification would work best. Just make sure I'm on the sidewalk. I refuse to be run over by one of those muggle driving things."

"A car," Harry offered.

Blaise narrowed his eyes. "Just hurry the hell up. Go in there—" Blaise handed him a box of matches from his pocket. "—and destroy the evidence in your fireplace. I'll say that Weasel threatened you into a confession, and then none of this will be valid. None of it will be admissible in court."

"Thank you," he breathed, upset that he had been so rude to him earlier.

"Don't mention it. Literally. You were 'too strong' for me to hold, got it, Golden Boy?"

Without wasting another moment, he cast the spell. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Blaise fell back onto the sidewalk with a sound 'thud' that made Harry wince with guilt. He would never know how Draco could enjoy inflicting bodily harm on people. Men. Lots of men.

Now wasn't the time to think of that. Harry dashed into his house only to be faced with the pile of letters he and Draco had exchanged. There were more upstairs, and more in the kitchen, and a stupid fucking poem that Harry had written in the bath tub was still sitting by the sink. Draco's touch was everywhere. The couch was rumpled from where they had been together, and Harry far too much porn on his muggle laptop full of men like Draco. Blonde, beautiful, and merciless.

The whole house was evidence. Evidence of Harry's collision with rock bottom, evidence of his affair and his growing affection.

Frantically, Harry raced up the stairs to his room. The brown barn owl he'd bought years ago hooted at the sight of him, not wanting to send anymore letters to far-off places. Harry's hands shook as he undid the cage lock. "Go," he told the bird. "Go, shoo!"

The owl had no trouble doing that, sailing right out of a window like it was on some kind of secret mission from its master.

Next was the shoebox under his bed. It held the pictures of his parents that Harry collected, his snitch, and other mementos from those who had died in his war. His Firebolt went under his arm. "The fork," Harry said suddenly, tucking the box under his other arm and sprinting down the stairs to the kitchen. Luckily, Ron hadn't come back yet when Harry peeked out the window. Harry quickly threw open the drawer holding all silver utensils except one. 'Moony' was still etched on the back as clear as if Sirius had done it yesterday.

Harry put it in the shoebox, grabbed a blanket off of his couch, and ran out. He had essentially solved the question of what items he would grab if his house was on fire. It was about to be, anyway.

The first thing he had to do was drag Blaise to the other side of the street. Harry didn't want rubble to injure the man that had made this all possible. The whites of Blaise's eyes seemed to glow in the dark as Harry tugged him across the road, whispering: "Sorry, sorry, sorry" all the while.

Harry placed the shoebox and broom next to Blaise before wrapping the blanket around himself. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be warm when he had stood out there, watching Ron leave him, too.

Then, Harry James Potter did something that was a long time coming. From the first smack Walburga Black gave her eldest son, from the first hex that eldest son had taken instead of his brother, and from the moment of its christening, that house had been a plague.

It loomed before Harry as if to challenge him as he strode back across the street, match box in hand. If he squinted hard enough, he could see Sirius standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry," Harry repeated, not really to anyone in particular this time.

Striking the match against the pack, Harry knew that this was what Sirius had wanted. The batty man had always loved the Vikings, and this was a Viking Funeral.

AN: I guess I have thing for setting houses on fire in fics? It's great literary symbolism, anyway.


	12. Chapter 12: Crime and Punishment

**AN:** This took forever to write. I was stuck at 1k words for who knows how long. Plus, the WoW expansion is coming out soon! On top of that, my auditions are picking up. Thanks so much for the support and reviews, you all are lovely, and this fic was a fun variation from my usual love of all things domestic. D/s at the end of the chapter.

**Chapter 12: Crime and Punishment**

Never had Ron Weasley been so close to punching another official of the law, on Christmas Eve of all nights. "Give me," he snapped through gritted teeth. "The fucking warrant."

Behind the counter, a nervous little man was having a meltdown. A rather inopportune meltdown, considering Ron was on the verge of being done with the case that had crawled into his mind and refused to leave. "Probable cause—" The man sputtered out, feeling himself sweat right through his undershirt. "You need to do the, the thing with Auror Zabini, and—"

"Why the hell won't you give me the warrant?" Ron demanded of the judge, slamming his hands down on the mahogany table that separated them. Every second that Ron spent at the Ministry was a second that Draco Malfoy was running from the law. That stupid prick fucked with his life, his sister, and his best friend (literally).

Now, the perspiring man could never tell the truth. Mostly because that man was David Watts, client of a certain Auror's sister. If Gail was revealed, then her client list was coming down with her. David couldn't let his wife find out, and what about the kids? So, for their sakes (and his own reputation, really), he was holding off as long as he could. "I'll give it to you," David nodded quickly, hoping he hadn't enraged a war veteran.

"_Hand it over_."

"I'll give it to you," David repeated, his head nodding like one of those bobble people he saw muggles put in their cars. "But I need to see the proof. The evidence, I mean."

Ron's teeth were going to be down to nubs by the end of the night if he kept grinding them at this pace. "That's not according to protocol!" he shouted, face as red as his hair. "I'll have your job, and I'll have your damned career so long as you make sickles from the Ministry unless I get that goddamn warrant!"

So, a goon who had fallen in lust with a 'fallen woman' had to make his choice. Losing his job due to halting the promised speed of the legal system, or having everyone read in The Prophet that he liked getting choked out by hired help. The choice was clear.

"I need Potter," David decided. After all, that poof had saved the whole world from sure doom once, hadn't he? "Bring Potter and his confession here, and then you get the warrant."

"Consider yourself fired," Ron growled before apparating back to Grimmauld Place so recklessly that it was a wonder he didn't splinch himself.

XxXxX

The very reason Draco Malfoy always knocked upon entering the most humble and quaint home of Natasha and Horatio Aspasia was to avoid messes like this.

"Sorry! This is important!" Draco yelled.

Natasha pushed her bright red skirts back down, shocked by the entrance. The bell-boy prince, however, was left to zip up his pants in a quiet embarrassment. It seemed they were amidst a very festive roleplay. Ah, the life of married couples.

"Draco," she huffed. "What—?"

"Your office," he panted back, rushing to the couple at the bottom of the stairs that led up to their room. "You need to go, you need to get rid of all of it."

"You can't mean—" Horatio started without getting so much as halfway through his sentence.

Panicked, Draco cut him off. "The Aurors know. We have to go." The thought of Harry being left alone in the house with the Aurors made Draco's stomach churn, but that had to wait for another time to be worried about. Harry would never be foolish enough to keep evidence in his home, right?

Draco really didn't want to think about the answer to that.

"Let's go," Natasha said bravely, marching past her flustered husband and distressed employee to fetch her coat. "We're shredding it all. Nothing can remain."

She had known this day would come, but she hadn't known it would be this soon. Some of her girls were even out working that night. They'd have to be notified, and clients would, too… This was such a mess.

Horatio rushed after her.

"You guys go there, I think I have to go be arrested," Draco murmured a little numbly.

Natasha spun around to face him again. "What are you talking about? No, you're coming with us. We'll contact the lawyers and we won't say a thing. They can't convict us without proof."

Shaking his head, Draco tried to get back his grip on reality. "No, Natasha… Auror Weasley. He walked in on Harry and me tonight."

"But you weren't even booked tonight," she said after a moment, confused.

"That's because I quit," Draco decided right at that very moment. Well, that was an awfully rash decision, but he'd said it. Now was no time to be taking things back. "Yeah, I think I'm quitting. Definitely quitting. I'm sorry, and it's not because of the Auror attention, but it's him. It's Harry fucking Potter, who I just left alone to deal with the mess we made."

Horatio gave his wife a trying look. Now was no time to have chats about emotions. All of their asses and their futures were on the line. "We have to go. If he's too in love to think straight, then we're not going to be of any help."

"Draco, don't say anything to them. I don't care if you're not working for me, I'll use my lawyers."

Draco nodded, looking at the couple a little distantly. "You should go," he nodded. "I should go, too."

Bracing for the worst, Natasha didn't pass up the opportunity to haul Draco in for a crushing hug. "We'll come to the station after my office, okay?"

"Okay," he murmured against her large silicone breasts. She had really got her money's worth, which was so typical of her. If he was going to miss one thing, it was the people that Draco had met and befriended. The men he'd slept with, the hotel maids he'd shared gossip with, the bartenders he'd charmed… They were all worth it.

Sure, it was a terribly lonely feeling to know that they were in his past, to see oneself move from one phase of their life to another, but it wasn't as awful as Draco had envisioned. He'd even been having stress dreams about it.

"Okay," Draco repeated. "I'll see you, believe me. I'll see you."

"We need to go," Horatio reminded them both, his worried and anxious nature having predicted this day and played it over a thousand times in his head. "_Now_."

With that, Draco watched them leave. Alone in a house that wasn't his, Draco figured he may as well apparate back to a house that wasn't his but rather his… Lover's? Friend's?

He supposed he'd see when he got there.

XxXxX

What Auror Weasley hadn't been expecting upon his apparation was a world of fire and brimstone. Fuck, had he messed up the apparation and ended up in the core of the earth?

His eyes stung so that he couldn't take very much in, but he knew that there was someone next to him who was wheezing like a madman. The other man had been there longer, and was beginning to crumple under the heat.

"Fire," Ron choked out, grasping ahold of the sleeve of whoever was next to him.

"No shit," Draco spat back, allowing himself to be dragged by the officer through the ash around them. His hair better have not been burning. Odd how your priorities worked out when you thought for a moment that you'd entered hell. "I think I always knew I'd end up here."

Ron yanked him along, clearing debris with his wand. "What?" he demanded, not having any goddamn time for Malfoy's dramatics when he was trying to save his bloody life.

Obviously the thought of leaving him there was a strong one, but it brought back memories of the Room of Requirement. Harry had gone back for him. Go figure. Ron really couldn't see why Harry had a liking for him even then, because the man wouldn't shut the hell up.

"…I mean, I've always thought religion was a joke! But now we're in hell. Surprise seeing you here, fuck. I thought all Gryffindors went to heaven," he blabbed on in a distant sort of way that Ron might have mistaken for drugs if they weren't close to being cooked alive. Maybe, if they were all lucky, Malfoy would sustain permanent brain damage.

"Shut _up_," Ron snapped. "Do I have to carry you?"

"I'm flattered, but I imagine gay romance in hell only puts you a level lower."

If the flames didn't kill Malfoy, Ron might.

The rancid smell of smoke and burning food tore through the house. Ron would have recognized Grimmauld Place if the structure wasn't falling to shit around him. A beam crashed where they had been moments ago, causing Ron to latch onto Malfoy with a force he hadn't realized he had in him, and dragging him to the moonlight outside.

Draco sputtered and coughed all over Ron's black Auror robes. "Fuck," he gasped, feeling the air go thin around him. Could you die if you were already in hell?

With one final burst of energy—considering Ron was nearly exhausted under the weight and too disoriented to cast a spell—Ron smashed through what used to be the front door of the home of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black.

Harry gaped, wand in his hand. He'd panicked once the building had actually caught on fire, and had to work at containing the fire to just one house. Harry hadn't intended to put the entire neighborhood to the torch.

Like many of his other ventures, this had gotten wildly out of control from lack of planning and general bad luck. While Blaise grumbled in protest from the other side of the street, Harry had been busy casting Augamenti left and right.

"Draco?" he panted between casts. "_Ron_?"

That was the first hint that Draco may have not been damned for all eternity. Harry had killed the incarnation of evil, hadn't he? Harry would probably argue that he'd just killed a man, and that alone was noble enough to assure him a spot in salvation, right?

"What," Ron coughed, scraping himself off of the sidewalk. "What the_ fuck_ are you doing?"

"I'm sorry!" Harry yelled, casting one last dousing spell before the fire was at least contained on the first floor. "I hadn't known that you'd—I'm sorry."

"You nearly killed me. You nearly killed _him_!"

Harry's eyes burned as smoke flew to them, but he was upset enough to be tearing up anyway. "I'm sorry, Ron. I'm so sick of being sorry, but I am. I lied to you, and I've been lying to everyone. That was wrong and I get that, but you have to understand. You would do anything for Hermione, anything to protect her—"

"Don't you dare compare Hermione to Draco," Ron scowled when he was finally able to stand. "Hermione and I have been in love since school, and Malfoy's just some prostitute that's filling your lonely void!"

Draco would have thrown in a 'still here!', but he was too busy trying to adjust to normal breathing again. The sidewalk was making a poor resting bed, but it was all he had.

Harry coughed and covered his face. "Help me," he begged through the charred blanket. "Please, Ron. I know you hate me, and I know you've hated me for a long time, now. Please, just help me put this fire out."

"You complete idiot!" Ron yelled before standing at his side. He wished he had Hermione's vocabulary so that he could throw more insults at him. "You daft, mental berk! I have never hated you at any moment but now! And even now—" Ron sent a bolt of water to the top floor of the building, watching helplessly as it crumbled down. "—I am so fucking mad at you. You've ruined my case, I now need a new partner, and I've got nobody that I can trust but Hermione."

A little desperately, Harry pulled away from casting spells to face Ron. "I'm sorry, I am. This wasn't the way I wanted things to go, you have to know that!"

"What did you want, then? A quickie with some twenty-galleon-an-hour bloke who could have any number of diseases?"

Finally, Draco could speak. "I am _much _more than twenty galleons an hour."

The whole thing was ludicrous and left Ron to wonder where he had gone so horribly wrong with this. "Aguamenti!" he roared, sending a jet of water right at the center of the house.

That, apparently, angered the burnt house. Seconds after the jet of water hit a support beam it all came tumbling down. Grimmauld Place collapsed in an implosion that Harry had never seen the likes of before. It was almost beautiful if you didn't think about all of Harry's belongings coming down with it.

Luckily, a crushed house was easier to douse than a multiple-story hidden mansion. The neighbors' houses were relatively unscarred except for some charred-looking bricks, and once Harry made the house disappear like Sirius had showed him the first time around, the fire had almost never existed. Almost.

Draco struggled to his feet when he saw number ten and number fourteen close the gap in between them. He hadn't even known the bloody place could do that. "Wow," Draco murmured. "You're out of your mind, Harry."

"I thought you'd noticed that before," Harry countered with a hint of sleepiness creeping into his voice.

"Oh, I noticed. You're Buy-a-Prostitute-crazy, but I never suspected arson-crazy."

"Well, it looks as if I am," he sighed.

From the other side of the street, Blaise could begin to wiggle his toes. Potter really was shite at casting paralysis spells.

Numbly, Harry continued. "I suppose you should actually arrest me now. Arson is a pretty serious charge, and I believe you have all the proof in the world for that." He wasn't going to run anymore, especially now that Draco had… Returned? Wait, why did he even leave? Harry held out his hands for the cuffs once again. "Go ahead, I'm staying here."

"You contained the fire," Ron said, thinking back to his minimal legal training. "And it's your property with no outstanding debts to Gringotts. You're burning refuse without a permit."

Harry couldn't believe his ears. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because somebody needs to," Ron muttered before snapping on the handcuffs. "You're not making a claim with the insurance company, so you're not getting charged with fraud—" It sounded more like a command then an admission. "—But you have to agree to some conditions if you want me to charge you only with that."

Draco narrowed his eyes. Fucking Weasley, he just knew that there had to be a catch. "He doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to," Draco snarled protectively, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Draco," Harry murmured softly. "I'm ready to do this on my terms, okay?"

With a sigh, Draco backed down.

"My terms," Ron corrected with a hint of his rising anger. "I pick your lawyer, and you plead guilty. The lawyer will strike a deal of five years' probation, ninety days community service, fine of four thousand galleons." Damn, that was more than he'd spent on Draco. "I'll be your probation officer, and you report to me once every month. You see a psychiatrist, one that won't suck you off when you're sad. Then, I don't care where, but you get a fucking job. Be a waiter, wash dishes, whatever."

Harry nodded. It was the best deal he was going to get. "Yeah," he mumbled. The 'psychiatrist' bit wasn't agreeing with his stomach at all, but Harry couldn't fight it anymore. When both your whore and your best friend thought you needed therapy, you probably needed therapy.

"And as for you," Ron said, giving Draco an icy glare. "I'm shutting your business down. I may not have proof, but I have influence. Parkinson may have talked me out of knowing that, but now I see. No charges, you just end all sex trade for money."

"Done and done."

"What?" Ron asked. Was the Man of the Night turning in that easily?

"As of tonight, I am unemployed," Draco explained. "But if it gets your knickers out of a twist, I will advise my former boss to discontinue her operations." Natasha wouldn't go down on that one without a fight, but it was better she heard it from Draco than from the enemy in black.

"Unemployed?" Harry questioned without thinking about it.

"Yeah," Draco said with a little laugh. "I'm unemployed and you're homeless."

Harry even had to laugh at that. "Oh, Merlin. I am, aren't I? I'm homeless. But… I thought you loved your job."

"I did. It was good for a long time, but I have to tell you something." Of all places, he had to tell Harry on the sidewalk while he was in some non-sexual bondage. Ridiculous. "I haven't been seeing anyone but you. I dropped them all."

If Harry's hands weren't bound, he would have rushed to Draco. "Really?" Everything he had been feeling was real and returned? No, that was too good to be true. That couldn't be true. Too many awful things had happened to Harry for his luck to be changing.

_Maybe_, he thought. _It hasn't got anything to do with luck._

"Yes, really," Blaise snarled from the other side of the street. "You've done the impossible, Potter. Draco loves you better than he loves anonymous sex. By the way, did anyone ever even teach you how to cast a proper spell? I'm barely stunned over here. Also, I told you to burn the letters in the fire place, not set the whole fucking street on fire."

"You're unemployed, too," Ron reminded him bitterly. Maybe his next partner would be better at showing up on time and actually listening to him.

"And you're a load of touchy-feely cocksuckers. I hate you all," Blaise announced miserably.

"Shut up," Ron and Draco both said at once.

This time, Ron was the one to guide Harry by the arm to his fate. Draco followed.

XxXxX

"Well, well, well," Draco purred, watching his drained-looking boyfriend enter, reeking of the trash he'd been picking up for community service. "Look at what the cat dragged in."

Harry gave him a sour look. "I have sand in places where sand should never be."

"Weasley got you on beach duty again?"

Not even dignifying that with a response, Harry marched to the shower. Who the hell knew teenagers could make such a mess in one night? There were red cups for miles where a party had been, with used condoms and rotting food strewn across the dunes. The other ruffians that Harry was on duty with didn't make anything better.

One woman was there for her third charge of petty theft. This time, Misses Julia Briggs had lifted a pack of cigarettes from a stand in Knockturn Alley.

"_You're Harry bleedin' Potter!" she'd yelled, a full three sticks of gum in her mouth cracking intermittently. "Oh, officer! Get a picture of us together."_

Harry hadn't even smiled in the photo.

Then there was Otto Jenkins, a con-artist that refused to give up his partner's name. He was a quiet one, at least. Harry liked to think that he and his con-artist friend were more than friends.

After him were Reggie, Angela, Georgina, and Timothy. Harry had never met a 'Timothy' that didn't shorten his name. It was a strange crowd, and Harry had never seen himself as the sort to be labeled a criminal or a convict. There went any remaining shot at the Auror Academy, he supposed.

"Don't forget to wash behind your ears!" Draco teased when heard the water come on in the bathroom. He could remember showering the night after Harry had torched Grimmauld Place to get the ash off of his skin and scrubbing himself raw in that shower.

After a quick wash and the discovery that a twig had been in Harry's hair all day, he was finally clean again. Not even bothering to put clothes back on, Harry made the trek to the bed that Draco was lounging on, drifting through job offers in the Daily Prophet. On page ten was an 'inside' story about Harry's 'descent into violence' that Draco had gotten a good laugh out of.

Harry rested next to him. "Any luck?"

"The last two I owled haven't responded, but that accounting firm sent me back a rather nastily-worded message about what a menace to society I was." At least they hadn't been a former client.

"Sucks," Harry offered.

"Your consolation means everything," Draco snarked before putting down the newspaper and draping an arm over Harry. "Talk to me."

Suddenly, Harry didn't know what to say. The fact that his day was crap was pretty self-evident, and he was more interested in what Draco had on his mind. It was always something strange, new, or wonderfully smutty. "I'm happy to be home," he tried.

"How convincing."

Draco was secretly happy that Harry was calling the upscale apartment a home. It was better than him staying in the skeleton of Grimmauld Place. "I'll have to be more persuasive, then," Harry murmured, nudging his nose up against Draco's. Even without his glasses, Harry thought that Draco was beautiful.

Draco gave Harry's side a little swat. "Obviously. I'm being incredibly kind by letting you stay here."

"It certainly doesn't have anything to do with our committed relationship," Harry nodded. 'Mutual exclusivity' had become his favorite phrase.

"Not at all," Draco agreed with a grin. "I just like having a live-in shag."

At that, Harry crawled onto his lap and began sliding off Draco's shirt. "Then I should probably be performing my duty."

"Maybe—for novelty's sake—I should start paying you," he laughed as he raked his fingernails down Harry's back.

Harry mewled happily and arched into him. "We're already in enough trouble, don't you think?" Harry mumbled in his ear.

"I suppose," Draco grinned, his eyes fluttering shut at Harry's kisses along his neck.

With a little tug, Harry rolled Draco on top of him so that their chests lay flat against one another. "I had a tough day," he articulated a little better this time. "I need you."

With a devilish grin, Draco curled his hands into Harry's hair. "When don't you?" he joked, happy that Harry got his sense of humor. Very few people did.

"Some time that isn't right this second."

With a deep laugh, Draco sat up to straddle him so that his wand was in a reachable distance. "Then you better remember that you ask for this," he warned before they began.

Harry nodded eagerly, which Draco had entirely expected. Bloody masochist.

"Slut," Draco accused blamelessly and the magic went to work. From under the bed, a chest of treasure (it was treasure to them, they supposed) floated up to Draco's hand so that he could open it. When Harry reached up to peek inside, Draco wordlessly bound the naked man to the bed with silk ties. "Stay where I put you."

"Yes, Sir," Harry sneered just to challenge his authority.

A sharp smack against Harry's thigh shut him up. The bonds had spread him out so tightly that he felt a warm stretch in his muscles, and leaned into it.

Out of the chest came a bright red switch. "You think you'd get enough punishment being treated like a fucking criminal all day."

"I want you to punish me, Sir," Harry insisted. Not the Aurors who looked at him like he was the main event of the carnival. A freak-show.

Draco brought the switch down on his stomach to make a stripe the same color as the tool. "Of course," Draco scoffed, secretly loving every word. "I can see you in that jumpsuit picking up filth. All the while, you're hard as ever. Does that turn you on?"

Harry wriggled beneath him. "No, Sir."

Another slap of the switch was lower on Harry's stomach, right above his tuft of black hair. "Don't lie to me," he snarled. "You'd kill for me to be there breathing down your neck. Mm, I'd gladly be your corrections officer. Fuck fines, I'd throw you over my knee whenever you so much as looked at me wrong."

A groan escaped Harry's mouth.

"Exactly," Draco said before bringing the switch down on the base of Harry's swollen cock.

Beneath him Harry let out a little sob, unable to as much as arch away from the blows. "Fuck," he shuddered. "Hurts."

Draco flicked the switch along the head of his cock to send both ends mad. "You say that like I'll stop," Draco chuckled and gave him another flick with the toy, and another, and another. Harry's cries echoed off of the walls.

With that, Draco decided to up the ante.

"Make another noise and I won't even let you come."

Harry's eyes widened in a mix of horror and excitement. He wouldn't… Right?

The switch's next target was Harry's scrotum. Draco started with gentle slaps against the sensitive skin before rising to a crescendo.

Struggling against the bonds and to keep his mouth shut, the effort made Harry's teeth clench down. "Good boy," Draco assured him, fondling the paddled skin. "That's it."

Again came the switch's sting against Harry's foreskin. His body convulsed against the bonds and the struggle to stay silent became even harder.

The tension on Harry's face was absolutely delicious. To add to his frustration, Draco closed his fist around Harry's reddened length and pumped with his entire arm. This time, Harry had to hold back groans as his toes curled under.

"Now there's the boy who listens so well," Draco murmured before dipping in for a kiss.

Harry kissed him back with a surprising force. He hadn't even known that he'd been clenching his hands the whole time.

Just to speed things up, Draco then Vanished his clothes. He didn't have any time for that undressing nonsense today.

"I'm going to gag you," he decided before pulling out a thick leather strap with something on the other side that Harry couldn't make out. "I'm sure you'll like this one." Draco flipped over the strap to show Harry the silicone head of a fat cock that Harry would obviously have to suck on. It wasn't long enough to interfere with breathing, but it was sure long enough. "Open wide, whore."

Silently, Harry did what he was told.

Draco grinned as he clasped the strap behind Harry's head. "I bought it just for you. I know how much you love to suck cock," he growled, tugging on Harry's hair to get him at a better angle. "Now _suck_."

Harry obeyed in spite of the nagging feeling that the cock in his mouth felt like a pacifier.

Interested in filling his every hole, Draco began to lubricate his fingers in order to stretch Harry open. Watching him writhe had been enough to get Draco excited as ever, his erection bobbing between his thighs.

With the gag in his mouth, Harry let out a barely-audible whimper when Draco pushed two fingers inside of him. Thankfully, Draco had decided that all noises from this point on were to be ignored. Not that he would give Harry the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Relax," he ordered even though Harry had gotten used to it. Quickly, Draco pushed his throbbing member inside of his bound-and-gagged beauty. Harry tested out another noise to see if he would be held back, and let out a sigh of relief. That was muffled by the silicone cock in his mouth, however.

Clenching around him, Harry tossed his head back and let everything happen to him. That was that passive, submissive allowance he adored. "Drafbo," he tried around the gag.

"You're so tight," Draco hissed, slowly drawing out his cock and pushing it back in. The gentle pounding set a fire inside Draco that he could only stoke and stoke.

"Mmbpf," Harry responded, pushing back as hard as he could without being in too much pain from the bonds. Whatever muscles beneath his arms that stretched down his sides—a muscle Draco most likely knew the name of—were going to be sore in the morning.

Thrust after thrust, the pressure rose inside the both of them. Never had Harry been so acutely aware of himself going over the brink, a boiling over that resulted in a plea. "Shir," he begged. "Can I comf?"

"Not yet," Draco said, giving his arse a spank as his quickened his pace.

Harry whimpered, not even able to cross his legs for a little relief.

"Not yet," he said again. This time, the spank left a mark.

Completely helpless to convince Draco otherwise, Harry was left to bite down around his gag.

"A little more," Draco panted.

Like the good boy he hoped he would be rewarded for being, Harry held himself back as long as he could. He could feel the telltale tremors of Draco beginning to come undone and hummed around his gag, eyes pleading for release.

"Now!" Draco cried before pulling out and covering Harry's chest in bursts of white.

Less than seconds later, Harry came with him, making even more of a mess than was there before.

That's what they were, after all. One big mess of rights and wrongs that were never clear no matter what the intentions behind them were.

"Harry," Draco panted after having laid down next to him and Vanishing the silk bonds and gag to return them to the box. "Harry."

"That shower I took," he said out of seemingly nowhere. "Was totally pointless."

"I'm sure you'll get over it."

Harry laughed and rested his head on one of Draco's pillows. Or was it one of _their_ pillows? "I should take another one."

Draco chuckled along with him. "You seriously cannot be horny again after that."

"No," Harry grinned. "I just want to be somewhere warm with you, and maybe get your semen off of me."

"Berk," he smirked before taking Harry's hand to lead him to the shower. They wouldn't be out of there for hours, and when they were, an owl would be waiting from Natasha.

Draco had a feeling she'd like Amsterdam much better, even if it meant their friendship had to endure the distance.

AN: That's all, folks!


End file.
